Islamic State releases 'al-Baghdadi message'

[webfact]

IS group releases audio message purportedly from leader
BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group on Thursday released an audio message purportedly from its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who has not been seen or heard from in months.

The 35-minute audio message posted on militant websites features a voice that sounds like al-Baghdadi's exhorting all Muslims to take up arms and fight on behalf of the group's self-styled caliphate. The speaker references the Saudi-led air campaign against Shiite rebels in Yemen, which began on March 26, and harshly criticizes the Saudi royal family.

"Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting," he said. "No one should believe that the war that we are waging is the war of the Islamic State. It is the war of all Muslims, but the Islamic State is spearheading it. It is the war of Muslims against infidels."

"O Muslims go to war everywhere. It is the duty of every Muslim," the speaker said.

It was not immediately possible to verify whether the voice was al-Baghdadi's.

In another indication the message was recorded recently, the speaker appears to refer to the thousands of people who fled Ramadi last month as the Islamic State group advanced on the town in Iraq's western Anbar province.

"If some of your relatives are fighting against the religion of God and are loyal to Rawafid and Crusaders we will not hurt you," he said using a derogatory term to refer to Shiites. He called on Sunni members of the Iraqi police and army to repent because "when the hands of the mujahideen get you no repentance will be accepted."

He praised fighters who joined the group in Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Algeria and Tunisia. He welcomed pledges of allegiance from Islamic State supporters in Yemen, Afghanistan and West Africa.

The last audio message purportedly from al-Baghdadi came in November, days after Iraqi officials said he was wounded in an airstrike on an Iraqi town near the Syrian border. Media reports have also said he was severely wounded. The audio message was not accompanied by photos or video.

Al-Baghdadi has only appeared in public once, in a video showing him delivering a Friday sermon in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul last July, shortly after it was captured by his group. The IS group controls much of northern Iraq and northern and eastern Syria, and has established a self-styled caliphate governed by a harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law.

The 35-minute audio message, which quoted several verses from the Quran, was released with written English, Russian, Turkish, French and German translations.

In the latest message, al-Baghdadi blasted Arab rulers, calling them "guarding dogs" and saying the Yemen war will lead to the end of the Saudi royal family's rule.


-- (c) Associated Press 2015-05-15

[Seastallion]

If he wasn't severely injured, or dead, there would be video.

[NeverSure]

"Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting," he said. "No one should believe that the war that we are waging is the war of the Islamic State. It is the war of all Muslims, but the Islamic State is spearheading it. It is the war of Muslims against infidels."

Like we didn't already know that. Bring it.

[JDGRUEN]

A Religion of War he says... no surprise ... he just left out Jihadi Evangelists

[Ulysses G.]

"Islam was never a religion of peace. Islam is the religion of fighting,"

He gets points for honesty.

[Jonmarleesco]

Well, every organisation bent on violence and destruction employs propaganda. Quite feasibly a variant.

[EnglishJohn]

"It is the war of Muslims against infidels"

Next the liberals who are steadily destroying this world will tell us it is not about religion.

I wish Mr Bag-daddio had gone on to elaborate why Allah has given all the smart bombs and drones to these infidels. And why all his own weapons were made by them too.

[Godders]

Dead or alive, there is a moral to the Al Baghdadi story, which is rather more complex than the Western alliance and its tame propagandists in the mass media would have us believe.

Before becoming self-styled emperor of the nascent new Islamic State, Al Baghdadi was a leader of the so-called Free Syria Army, created with Western support to oust the Assad regime. Baghdadi and several other prominent fundamentalists eventually broke away to form ISIS. They had plenty of money and military equipment (thoughtfully provided by the US as a result of hush-hush rendezvous in Syria with hawkish Senator and failed Presidential candidate John McCain), plus specialist training courtesy of American vassal states in the region.

Until Baghdadi and his head-chopping militia burst onto the scene, the biggest bogeyman around had been the late-unlamented Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden, alleged architect of the Twin Towers bombings. Unlikely as it may seem, this wealthy son of a Saudi businessman with close business links to US Presidents George Bush Snr and Jr, cut his terrorist teeth as a CIA operative, assisting the Mujahideen fundamentalist group which fought and eventually defeated the Soviet which had occupied Afghanistan in the late Seventies.,

Mission accomplished, the Mujahideen subsequently morphed into Al Qaeda and, under Bin Laden's leadership, proceeded to savagely bite the hand that had fed. A series of devastating attacks against civilian and military targets in the US and other Western countries culminated in the destruction of the World Trade Centre, which killed 3,000 US citizens. US President George Bush Jr was quick to seize the excuse to initiate long-laid plans for extending US influence in the Gulf Region - plans which brought us the phoney global "war on terror" and the resultant deaths and displacement of millions of innocent civilians.

How many more Frankensteins, one wonders, will the world's powerful and aggressive nation in history unleash upon the world as it relentlessly seeks to extend its hegemony?

Edited May 15, 2015 by Godders