Osama bin Laden had used the same props, as had Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the first leader of the Islamic State, or ISIS. Mr. al-Baghdadi apparently made the video sometime after ISIS was driven out of its last sliver of territory, the village of Baghuz in Syria, on March 23. But the organization had been declared dead before, only to come back with a vengeance. And indeed, a week before the video was made public, suicide bombers allied with ISIS struck in churches and high-end hotels across Sri Lanka, killing at least 253 . His trademark was extraordinary cruelty even by the depraved standards of earlier jihadists, with prisoners publicly beheaded, captive women raped and suicide bombers dispatched on hundreds of missions.

Source: New York Times May 02, 2019 01:07 UTC