Islamic State leader says "no retreat" from Mosul assault
KOKJALI/BAGHDAD -- ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi told his followers on Thursday there could be no retreat in a "total war" against the forces arrayed against them, as advancing soldiers battled the militants inside their northern Iraqi stronghold.
Expressing confidence that his Islamic State fighters would prevail against Shi'ite Islam, Western "crusaders" and the Sunni "apostate" countries of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Baghdadi called on the jihadists fighting in the city of Mosul to "wreak havoc".
"This raging battle and total war, and the great jihad that the state of Islam is fighting today only increases our firm belief, God willing, and our conviction that all this is a prelude to victory," Baghdadi said in an audio recording released online by supporters on Thursday.
