ISIS leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi lives? New tape seems to confirm it.

Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi. Reuters. 

Once thought to be dead, ISIS leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi has released a new propaganda tape urging his followers to fight to the death. Reuters. The recording is the first communication from Baghdadi since last November. In it he urges his fighters to keep fighting and urged them not to surrender. In it he mentioned current events such as North Korea's threats against the United States and Japan as well as the liberation of Mosul from ISIS. Baghdadi threatened the media in his message as well. Baghdadi has been reported dead many times but the Russians claimed that they had likely killed the ISIS leader earlier this year. Despite his survival, the Caliphate has been greatly reduced in power and influence. 

My Comment:

No surprises here. I was fairly skeptical of the reports of Baghdadi's death. He has been reported dead many different times and so far it seems as every single one of those reports have been false. That's not too surprising given how poor the public's information on this topic is but you would think that the various governments engaged against him would tamp down on speculation. 

I guess it's possible that this recording is somehow fake and Baghdadi's voice has been replaced, but I find that pretty unlikely. For one thing, I doubt ISIS has the capability of faking something like that. Perhaps they did at their peak but they have obviously been reduced so much that I doubt they have the technology left to do so. This is not the same ISIS that had a chemical weapons program and a state of the art propaganda arm. Current ISIS is barely able to hold on the territory they still have, let alone fake a recording of their leader. 

I also think that intelligence agencies would be able to determine if the voice is really him. They have voice analysis and can figure out who someone is just by listening to them talk and I am guessing that they have already used this tech to confirm that it really is Baghdadi. 

As for his message I am not impressed. ISIS fighters are mostly taking his advice but that was always going to happen. Most ISIS fighters have very little hope of returning to the real world after ISIS falls. The local ones will probably not be able to return to their homes, if they even exist anymore. The foreign fighters have pretty much zero chance of returning to their home countries. They pretty much have to fight to the death even though their situation is hopeless because the only other option is life in prison or execution. 

So why has Baghdadi been so hard to kill? Well for one thing he's out in the desert without much to mark him as a target. He probably moves frequently and keeps far away from computers and cell phones. My guess is he also surrounds himself with civilians which would make an assassination attempt more difficult. 

At this point I don't think that al-Baghdadi is really that relevant anymore. He is more of a symbol than anything else and his actual contribution to ISIS is limited to propaganda like this. ISIS has been splintered and destroyed so much that they hardly have any leadership anymore. And since Baghdadi's main goal seems survival, he's too busy to be much of a leader. 

I do hope that Baghdadi is brought to justice someday. I hope that he is captured and put on trial, but I doubt that will happen. Baghdadi is extremely unlikely to surrender and will probably kill himself if it looks like he is in danger of capture. Much more likely is that he is finally tracked down and killed. The best case for that is a commando raid like the one that took down Osama Bin Laden. 

Of course, no matter how he dies, as long as nobody has the body, people won't believe that he is really gone. The same thing happened with Osama Bin Laden. People still think he is alive and some believe he died long ago. If Baghdadi does die, I think the same thing will happen with him. The only way that won't happen is if he is captured and executed...