In the 18-minute video from the Al Furqan network, a bearded man with Baghdadi’s appearance says the Easter bombings in Sri Lanka were ISIS’ response to losses in its last territorial stronghold of Baghouz in Syria.
The group will seek revenge for jailed and killed members, he says, calling for militants operating in west Africa to multiply attacks against “Crusader France and its allies”.
The authenticity and date of the recording could not be independently verified.
The video would be the first from Baghdadi since he was filmed in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014. More recent speeches have been released as audio recordings.
Introductory script at the start of the video dates it to earlier in April, and he can be seen sitting cross-legged on the floor giving an address to three aides who have their faces blurred.
The speaker appears to be in good health and looks like a slightly older version of Baghdadi than when he was pictured in 2014, addressing followers from a pulpit to declare a caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria.
In the video, the speaker paid tribute to fighters who died in the Baghouz area, saying they included nationals from Iraq, Belgium, France, Australia, Chechnya and Egypt.
He said Easter Sunday bombings that left more than 250 people dead were carried out “in revenge for their brothers in Baghouz”.
The group had carried out 92 operations in eight countries in revenge for their losses, he said, without giving a timeframe for the attacks. Baghdadi’s last known audio recording was released in August 2018.
At the end of the video, one of the aides passes laminated files to Baghdadi labeled with some of the countries or regions in which ISIS has been active, including Somalia, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, west Africa, Yemen, and Libya.
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