After almost a year of silence, a new audio message has been released purportedly from ISIL leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.<br /><br />In it, followers of his jihadist group are urged to attack the West, including its media, and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.<br /><br />Russia said earlier this year it might have killed Baghdadi in an air strike on the outskirts of Raqqa.<br /><br />But leaders of the US-led coalition against ISIL like Leiutenant General Stephen Townsend had said Baghdadi was probably still alive.<br /><br />ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi calls for attacks on Western media https://t.co/gJVb7c2g1S— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) 28 septembre 2017<br /><br />The date of the 46-minute recording, released on Thursday, is not clear. <br /><br />But the speaker said to be Baghdadi appears to refer to recent events including North Korean threats against Japan and the United States and the Iraqi Kurdish independence referendum.<br /><br />There is also a reference to the recapture two months ago of Mosul by US-backed Iraqi forces which effectively marked the end of the Iraqi half of Baghdadi’s self-proclaimed ‘caliphate’.<br /><br />Western-backed Syrian forces are now also thrusting into the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, so-called Islamic State’s operational headquarters, from where it plotted many of the attacks that have killed hundreds of people around the world.<br /><br />with Reuters<br />
