{"id":6977,"date":"2015-12-27T09:01:57","date_gmt":"2015-12-27T17:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/isis-leader-group-well-mocks-saudis\/"},"modified":"2015-12-27T09:01:57","modified_gmt":"2015-12-27T17:01:57","slug":"isis-leader-group-well-mocks-saudis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/isis-leader-group-well-mocks-saudis\/","title":{"rendered":"ISIS leader: Group well, mocks Saudis"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT<\/strong> \u2014 The Islamic State group on Saturday released a new message purportedly from its reclusive leader, claiming that his self-styled \u201ccaliphate\u201d is doing well despite an unprecedented alliance against it and criticizing the recently announced Saudi-led Islamic military coalition against terrorism.<\/p>\n

In the 24-minute audio, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said airstrikes by the international coalition only increase his group\u2019s determination and resolve. The message was al-Baghdadi\u2019s first since May, and comes amid battlefield setbacks that IS has recently faced.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, a U.S.-backed coalition of rebels in Syria \u2014 including Syrian Kurdish, Arab and Christian groups \u2014 captured a major dam on the Euphrates River from the Islamic State group as part of the coalition\u2019s march on IS-held areas in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

The coalition, known as Syria Democratic Forces, announced earlier this week a new offensive aimed at cutting supply lines between IS strongholds in the country\u2019s north. The SDF said it seized the Tishrin Dam, which supplies much off northern Syria with electricity, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

An SDF spokesman told AP earlier this week that his forces are also trying to cut the supply lines between the Islamic State\u2019s de-facto capital of Raqqa and the group\u2019s stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

The SDF, dominated by the main Kurdish militia in Syria known as YPG, or People\u2019s Protection Units, has become a main force in fighting IS.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State group has come under pressure in Syria and Iraq, where it has declared its self-styled Islamic caliphate on territory that the militant group controls. <\/p>\n

It lost the town Sinjar in Iraq last month, and areas across the border in Syria at the same time. Iraqi government troops are also advancing in the Islamic State-held city of Ramadi, the provincial capital of the sprawling Anbar province, Iraq\u2019s Sunni heartland.<\/p>\n

Airstrikes by the U.S.-led coalition and Russia in Syria have also destroyed Syrian oil facilities and killed several IS leaders in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unprecedented in the history of our Ummah (Islamic nation) that all the world came against it in one battle, as it is happening today. It is the battle of all the disbelievers against all the Muslims,\u201d al-Baghdadi said.<\/p>\n

He said the U.S.-led alliance does \u201cnot scare us… nor do they scatter our resolve because we are the victors in any event.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Baghdadi also taunted the United States for not putting boots on the ground. \u201cThey do not dare to come, because their hearts are full of fear from the mujahideen,\u201dor holy warriors, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerica and its allies dream of destroying the caliphate through their proxies and henchmen, and whenever an alliance of theirs fails or a tail is cut, they hasten to establish another, until they recently declared the Salouli (Saudi) alliance that was falsely called Islamic,\u201d al-Baghdadi added.<\/p>\n

If the Saudi-led alliance was truly Islamic, then it would fight the Syrian army and its Russian \u201cmasters,\u201d as well as Shiites and Jews, al-Baghdadi said.<\/p>\n

In mid-December, Saudi Arabia announced the new, 34-member alliance against terrorism, to be based in the kingdom\u2019s capital, Riyadh. But Shiite powerhouse Iran is not part of the new coalition; neither are Iraq and Syria, whose forces are battling to regain ground from the Islamic State group and whose governments are allied with Tehran.<\/p>\n

In the audio, al-Baghdadi also warned nations taking part in the war against IS by saying: \u201cWe promise you, God permitting, that whoever participates in the war against the Islamic State will pay the price dearly.\u201d<\/p>\n

He threatened Israel by saying, \u201cwe haven\u2019t forgotten you\u201d and \u201cwe are getting closer to you\u201d every day. To Israeli Jews, he said that they \u201cwill hide behind trees and stones\u201d from the IS.<\/p>\n

He also urged Muslims world over to join the IS fight, saying it is their Islamic duty to rise up everywhere.<\/p>\n

The authenticity of the audio could not be independently confirmed but it was posted on IS-affiliated websites and Twitter as past IS messages. Also, it was produced by the al-Furqan Media Foundation, IS media arm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BEIRUT \u2014 The Islamic State group on Saturday released a new message purportedly from its reclusive leader, claiming that his self-styled \u201ccaliphate\u201d is doing well despite an unprecedented alliance against it and criticizing the recently announced Saudi-led Islamic military coalition against terrorism. In the 24-minute audio, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said airstrikes by the international coalition […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6977","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6977"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6977\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6977"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6977"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6977"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}