Watch: ISIS Leader Delivers Threatening Message to the West in Rare Public Appearance
By Josie Ensor. The leader of the self-declared Islamic State issued a defiant message to the West, warning “crusaders” not to dare fight on his turf.
In a rare public statement – his first in seven months – Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi said Western countries had “learned from” previous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“Crusaders and Jews don’t dare to come on the ground because they were defeated in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said in a 23-minute long audio message released through an [ISIS]-run internet account.
The message – dubbed an “alternative Christmas broadcast” on social media – appeared to be an effort to rally [ISIS] followers against the growing number of enemies arrayed against them.
The leader, who has rarely been pictured and has not been heard from since he was believed to have been injured in an airstrike by Iraqi forces in October, Russian or US-led airstrikes had failed to weaken the group, which was only “expanding and getting stronger”. (Read more from “ISIS Leader Delivers Threatening Message to the West in Rare Public Appearance” HERE)
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Dramatic Video of Russian Air Strikes ‘on Islamic State Oil Empire’
By Agencies, video source Russian Ministry of Defense. Russia has released spectacular footage of what Kremlin officials claim to be a successful bombing campaign to destroy the Islamic State’s oil-smuggling rackets into Turkey.
At a briefing by the Russian ministry of defence in Moscow, generals produced videos and photographs of Russian warplanes pulverising huge columns of oil tankers allegedly transporting oil for sale on the black market.
The Kremlin claimed to have destroyed 17 such truck columns in the past week alone – part of a Moscow-led onslaught against Isil’s oil rackets that Russia says has wiped out nearly 2,000 oil tankers since Russia directly entered the war in Syria in September.
The pictures were released to journalists by Lieutenant General Sergei Rudskoy, a senior figure in Russian Armed Forces command, in a briefing apparently designed to be a mirror image to those conducted by the Pentagon in America.
He sat before a giant video screen showing aerial footage of the Russian attacks, which led to tankers being engulfed in plumes of thick black smoke. (Read more from “Dramatic Video of Russian Air Strikes ‘on Islamic State Oil Empire'” HERE)
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