This image, made from a video posted on a militant website July 5, 2014, purports to show Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi delivering a sermon at a mosque in Iraq. It has been almost a year since his last message to followers, recorded as Islamic State militants girded themselves for a U.S.-backed assault on Mosul, their largest stronghold. [The year after ISIS: The struggles of a Sunni village in northern Iraq]Three years on, the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, is defending a shrinking stretch of territory. Russian officials said in June that there was a “high probability” that the Islamic State leader had died in an airstrike on Raqqa. “America, Europe and Russia are living in a state of terror,” he said, according to a translation by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks Islamic State propaganda.

Source: Washington Post September 28, 2017 17:42 UTC