Video said to show militant chief

Speaker on tape accepts ‘burden’ of leading new caliphate

This image taken from the website of an extremist group calling itself the Islamic State purportedly shows the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon Saturday in Iraq.

This image taken from the website of an extremist group calling itself the Islamic State purportedly shows the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, delivering a sermon Saturday in Iraq.

Sunday, July 6, 2014

BAGHDAD — A video posted online Saturday purports to show the leader of an extremist group that has overrun much of Syria and Iraq delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq, in what would be a rare — if not the first — public appearance by the shadowy militant.

The video was released on at least two websites known to be used by the group, but it was not possible to independently verify whether the person shown was indeed the group’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It bore the logo of al-Furqan, the group’s media arm.

Through brute force and guile, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has seized control of a vast areas straddling Syria and Iraq, and has declared the establishment of an Islamic state, or caliphate, in those territories. The group, which renamed itself the Islamic State, proclaimed al-Baghdadi the leader of its state and demanded that all Muslims pledge allegiance to him.

“It is a burden to accept this responsibility to be in charge of you,” he says in the video. “I am not better than you or more virtuous than you. If you see me on the right path, help me. If you see me on the wrong path, advise me and halt me. And obey me as far as I obey God.”

The man purported to be al-Baghdadi is shown speaking in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, which al-Baghdadi’s group captured last month.

A senior Iraqi intelligence official said that after an initial analysis, the man in the video is believed to be al-Baghdadi. The official said the arrival of a large convoy in Mosul around midday Friday coincided with the blocking of cellular networks in the area. He said the cellular signal returned after the convoy departed.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.

Another aspect of the rule that al-Baghdadi envisions was made clear in a series of images that emerged online late Saturday showing the destruction of at least 10 ancient shrines and Shiite mosques in territory his group controls.

The 21 photographs posted on a website that frequently carries official statements from the Islamic State document the destruction in Mosul and Tal Afar. Some of the photos show bulldozers plowing through walls, while others show explosives demolishing the buildings in a cloud of smoke and rubble.

Residents from both Mosul and Tal Afar confirmed the destruction of the sites.

Sunni extremists consider Shiites Muslims heretics, and the veneration of saints apostasy.

The Islamic State seized Mosul in June in the opening act of its offensive that sent much of the Iraqi army scattering. Shiite militiamen and volunteers have had to fill the void as the regular army struggles to regroup.

In the first confirmation that Iranian forces are involved in the battle, Iran’s state media reported Saturday that a military pilot was killed in Iraq.

IRNA, Iran’s official news agency, identified the pilot as Col. Shoja’at Alamdari Mourjani. The report did not provide details of how or when the pilot was killed, but it said he died defending holy places in the Iraqi city of Samarra, which is home to an important Shiite pilgrimage site.

Tehran has repeatedly pledged its support for the Shiite-dominated government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki but has said it would not send military forces unless asked to do so.

On Saturday, al-Maliki removed the chief of the Iraqi army’s ground forces and the head of the federal police from their posts as part of a shake-up of the security forces.

Military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said al-Maliki signed the papers to retire Lt. Gen. Ali Ghaidan, commander of the army’s ground forces, and Lt. Gen. Mohsen al-Kaabi, the chief of the federal police. Al-Moussawi said both men leave their jobs with their pensions. No replacements have been named.

Meanwhile, dozens of Indian nurses who had been stranded in Iraqi territory held by the Islamic extremists were greeted with hugs and flowers as they returned home to southern India.

The 46 women had been holed up for more than a week in Tikrit, where fighters of the Islamic State have taken over. The nurses had been moved to a new area under the extremist group’s control, and crossed over late Friday into Irbil, in Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region.

The Indian government organized an Air India plane to fly the nurses to the nurses’ home state of Kerala.

One of the nurses told New Delhi Television that the extremists did not mistreat the women after they moved them from their hospital in Tikrit to Mosul.

It remained unclear whether the nurses had been held by the militants or were just stranded. The Indian foreign ministry gave no details of how their freedom was secured.

Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Maamoun Youssef and Muneeza Naqvi of The Associated Press and Jason Rezaian of The Washington Post.