Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for attacks against the rulers of Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name yesterday, saying his self-declared caliphate was expanding there and in four other Arab countries. Baghdadi also said a US-led military campaign against his group in Syria and Iraq was failing and he called for “volcanoes of jihad” the world over. Reuters could not independently confirm the authenticity of the speech – an audio recording carried on Islamic Staterun social media.
The voice sounded similar to a previous speech delivered by Baghdadi in July in a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the last time he spoke in public. The speech followed contradictory accounts out of Iraq after US air strikes last Friday about whether he was wounded in a raid.
US officials said on Tuesday they could not confirm whether Baghdadi was hit in a strike near Falluja in Iraq. In Washington yesterday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she could not confirm the recording’s authenticity and said Washington and others were likely to increase efforts to counter the group’s claims to represent Islam.
We announce to you the expansion of the Islamic State to new countries
“Clearly the brutality, the rhetoric, the efforts to incite, by any leaders of ISIL … is not a new phenomenon. It certainly is a reminder to everyone in the region and around the world of what their intentions are,” Psaki told reporters. Baghdadi urged supporters in Saudi Arabia, the world’s top oil exporter, to take the fight to the rulers of the kingdom, which has joined the US-led coalition in mounting air strikes against the Islamic State group in Syria. “O sons of al-Haramayn...the serpent’s head and the stronghold of the disease are there... draw your swords and divorce life, because there should be no security for the Saloul,” Baghdadi said, using a derogatory term to refer to the leadership of Saudi Arabia. Haramayn is a reference to the two holiest places in Islam, both of them in Saudi Arabia.
Since Islamic State began an offensive in Iraq in June, Saudi Arabia has sent thousands of troops to the border area. The speech was not dated but carried a reference to a November 7 US announcement that President Barack Obama had approved sending up to 1,500 more US troops to Iraq. Obama has said the United States aims to degrade and eventually destroy Islamic State. Islamic State has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq and in June declared a caliphate over territory it controls. Baghdadi said he had accepted oaths of allegiance from supporters in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Algeria. “We announce to you the expansion of the Islamic State to new countries, to the countries of the Haramayn, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria,” Baghdadi said.
The speech was transcribed in Arabic and translated into English.