MANAMA: Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s audio message is the first from al-Baghdadi since December 2015, coming three weeks after the Mosul offensive. The most relevant part of the message was his call for discipline, urging the group’s militants not to retreat from the battlefield ‘in shame’ and to hold ground and obey their emirs ‘as an act of worship’.
This is the first time that al-Baghdadi has personally intervened with a message to urge Islamic State militants to maintain discipline on the battlefield. This suggests that the group’s leadership is increasingly concerned about defections and how it is trying to prevent militants from fleeing the battlefield, says Ludovico Carlino, Senior Analyst, IHS Country Risk.
Al-Baghdadi’s reference to the Libyan city of Sirte and the ‘courageous brothers’ who have been resisting an anti-Islamic State offensive since June 2016, is likely intended to serve as an example of resistance for the mujahidin in Mosul, and eventually in Islamic State’s another stronghold of Raqqa. The strong focus ‘on the final victory that God will guarantee’ to those fighting until the end is also intended to maintain and reinforce cohesion in the ranks, despite the low morale among those ‘conscripts’ in Mosul reluctantly forced to fight by a hard core of more ideologically committed fighters. However, senior Islamic State leadership have been leaving Mosul for Syria as early as July 2016.
