IS chief Baghdadi promises victory, Iraqi troops at Mosul's gate

With Iraqi troops battling inside Islamic State's Iraqi bastion of Mosul, the militants' leader told his followers to fight to the death in what he said was a war against Shia Islam, Western crusaders and the Sunni "apostate" countries Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

Expressing confidence in victory, despite the broad alliance of Iraqi and international forces arrayed against a few thousand Islamic State fighters in Mosul, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on the jihadists to "wreak havoc".

He also urged them to target Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Sunni Muslim regional powers he said had entered the war against Islamic State.

"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.

In his first audio message released in nearly a year, Baghdadi called on the population of Mosul's Nineveh province "not to weaken in the jihad" against the "enemies of God". He also called on the group's suicide fighters to "turn the nights of the unbelievers into days, to wreak havoc in their land and make their blood flow as rivers". Addressing those who might consider fleeing, he said, "know that the value of staying on your land with honour is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame." The exact location of Baghdadi, an Iraqi whose real name is Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is not clear. Reports have said he may be in Mosul itself, or in Islamic State-held land to the west of the city, close to the border with Syria.

Targeting Turkey and Saudi

In a sectarian speech, Baghdadi called for attacks on both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, saying the Sunni countries had both sided with the enemy in a war he said was targeting Sunni Islam.

Islamic State fighters should unleash the fire of their anger on Turkish troops fighting them in Syria, and take the battle into Turkey.

"Turkey entered the zone of your operations, so attack it, destroy its security, and sow horror within it. Put it on your list of battlefields. Turkey entered the war with the Islamic State with cover and protection from Crusader jets," he said referring to the US-led air coalition.

Baghadi also told his followers to launch "attack after attack" in Saudi Arabia, targeting security forces, government officials, members of the ruling Al Saud family and media outlets, for "siding with the infidel nations in the war on Islam and the Sunna (Sunni Muslims) in Iraq and Syria".

Islamic State has been on the retreat since last year in both Iraq and Syria, in the face of a myriad of different forces seeking to crush the ultra-hardline group.

Shia fighters from the Hashed al-Shaabi flash the sign for victory as they enter the village of Abu Shuwayhah, south of Mosul, on November 1, 2016 AFP

'Back from the dead'

A reporter in Gogjali, on the eastern front line, saw larger than usual numbers of civilians walking to safer areas with little or no belongings. "Some of the kids that arrive are barefoot, and they don't have sufficient water and food," said Alvhild Stromme, a media adviser for the Norwegian Refugee Council, one of the most active aid groups in Iraq. Some were leaving Gogjali and others the eastern Mosul neighbourhood of Samah, in what may be a rare breach for civilians trapped inside the city. All told tales of IS brutality.

"They confiscated my tractor and then threw me in jail for six days. They beat me and when I got out I couldn't do my work anymore," said Yusef Fariq.

The 40-year-old farmer, speaking from his home in Gogjali and surrounded by his mother and two sons, still had the long beard IS militants forced him to grow.

"They were killing us, always asking for money, we couldn't go anywhere. We went through hell," his mother said.

With an assault on the city looking imminent, aid groups said they were "bracing for the worst" and warned that the fate of a million-plus civilians still believed trapped inside Mosul was in the balance.

Shia forces to cut off west Mosul

Iraq's Popular Mobilisation Shia forces aim to cut the western supply route out of the Islamic State-held city of Mosul on Thursday, the leader of the largest militia told Iraqi television. "Today, God willing, is the completion of the first stage of the Hashid (Popular Mobilisation) operations - that is cutting the supply route of the enemy between Tal Afar and the Muhalabiya district, reaching to Mosul," Hadi al-Amiri, the leader of the Badr Organisation said. Tal Afar lies about 55km west of Mosul, on the way to Islamic State-controlled regions of neighbouring Syria. Cutting off the western side of the city will leave Islamic State enclosed on four axes.

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