Iraq says Daesh leader Baghdadi filmed video in 'remote area'

Baghdadi's appearence in a video released Monday was the first time he had been seen in 5 years. (AFP)
Updated 30 April 2019
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Iraq says Daesh leader Baghdadi filmed video in 'remote area'

BAGHDAD: Daesh remains a potent threat around the world despite reduced capabilities, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday, adding its leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi had made his latest video appearance in a "remote area."

Abdul Mahdi did not say which country that area was in.
A video released late on Monday by Daesh's propaganda wing showed a man it said was Al-Baghdadi in what would be his first appearance since he declared the extremists' now-defunct "caliphate" five years ago.
The authenticity and date of the recording could not be independently verified.
Abdul Mahdi said Baghdadi's appearance was an attempt to boost militants and that Daesh would attempt to carry out more attacks.
"Regarding the location of Baghdadi, we can't give intelligence information right now but it's clear from the video that he's in a remote area," Abdul Mahdi said at a news conference on a visit to Berlin.
Al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi, is believed to be hiding out in an isolated area of either Iraq or Syria, part of vast desert regions Daesh once held and from where it is thought the extremists are now waging regular insurgent-style attacks against security forces in both countries.
Hisham Al-Hashemi, a security adviser to the Iraqi government, said officials had narrowed his whereabouts from 17 to a possible four locations.
"These are in the desert of Iraq's Anbar (province) or in the (eastern) desert of Homs in Syria," he said.
Abdul Mahdi said Daesh's capabilities had "greatly reduced" but that the group still posed a threat.
"Daesh is not just a small organisation, it's widespread and will try to put confidence back in its militants and carry out acts such as those in Sri Lanka," he said, referring to the Easter Sunday attacks claimed by the group which killed more than 250 people.
In the 18-minute video, a bearded man with Al-Baghdadi's appearance says the bombings in Sri Lanka were Daesh's response to losses in its last territorial stronghold of Baghouz in Syria.
The video would be the first from Al-Baghdadi since he was filmed in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014. More recent speeches have been released as audio recordings.
A US-backed campaign ended Daesh's control of territory in Iraq in late 2017 and in Syria last month, nearly five years after the group took over vast areas in both countries.


Video shows armed men beating a Palestinian in West Bank

Updated 9 sec ago
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Video shows armed men beating a Palestinian in West Bank

  • The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said

TEL AVIV: Dozens of masked men armed with sticks beat and injured a Palestinian in the Israeli-occupied West Bank when they attacked a plant nursery, according to people who saw the attack and video footage obtained by The Associated Press.
Video filmed by security cameras shows men dressed mostly in black, faces covered, with several hitting and kicking a man on the ground.
Two witnesses who are members of the family that owns the facility said Israeli settlers beat 67-year-old Basim Saleh Yassin as he was trying to flee the German-Palestinian-run nursery in the northern West Bank village of Deir Sharaf. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.

BACKGROUND

The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued.

Workers fled when they saw the settlers coming on Thursday but Yassin is deaf and couldn’t hear the warnings to leave, one family member said.
The witnesses said Yassin was in the hospital with broken bones in his hand and other injuries to his face, chest and back. Four cars at the nursery were burned.
The attack is the latest in rising Israeli settler violence in the West Bank, where assaults increased during the Palestinian olive harvest in October and have continued. 
Israeli authorities have done little beyond issuing occasional condemnations of the violence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the perpetrators “a handful of extremists” and urged law enforcement to pursue them for “the attempt to take the law into their own hands.” 
But rights groups and Palestinians say the problem is far greater than a few bad actors, and attacks have become a daily phenomenon across the territory.
Israel’s army said it dispatched soldiers to the Shavei Shomron junction — close to the area of Thursday’s attack — following reports of dozens of masked Israelis vandalizing property. 
The army said it apprehended three suspects who were taken to police for questioning. It said security forces condemn violence of any kind.
According to one of the family members who own the nursery, it was the third time in a year that the facility was attacked. 
The previous incident was in September and cost the business more than $600,000 as offices and facilities were damaged, he said.
In the video of Thursday’s attack, Yassin runs from a group of masked people before falling to the ground.
One man kicks him and another hits him twice with what appears to be a stick. Yassin stays on his knees as he’s struck again and then places his hands on the ground. 
As the men are leaving, one kicks him in the head while others strike him again until he’s seen lying on the pavement.