Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the elusive leader of the Al Qaeda splinter group Islamic State of Iraq and Sham (Isis), walked out of the shadows and delivered a sermon at the Great Mosque in Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city.
He addressed the packed congregation – which included Isis fighters and local sympathisers – on the first Friday July 04,2014 of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, in the heart of a city his fighters took control of barely a month ago.
Dressed in black from head to toe, and wearing a flowing robe, this is the first image seen in years of the world’s most wanted man, whose terrorist group has butchered thousands and stolen more than a billion pounds in gold and cash
Speaking from the pulpit of the mosque, Baghdadi, 42, urged the world’s Muslims to flock to the new Islamic caliphate. He praised the victory of his 14,000 fighters spread across Iraq and Syria.
The speech was an audacious move for a man who has a £6 million bounty on his head and who would be a target of attacks by drones or US forces.
His sermon came only days after he declared himself caliph, or ruler, of the world’s 1.2 billion Muslims. He also declared large swathes of northern Syria and Iraq seized by his fighters as his new caliphate.
A video of Baghdadi’s sermon was released on the internet and went viral instantly on jihadist forums and websites
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