So-called Islamic State has released an audiotape purportedly from the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, urging its supporters not to retreat as Iraqi forces advance on the city of Mosul.

The recording has not been verified yet but analysts believe it is genuine.

Baghdadi's whereabouts are unknown. Some officials have said he may be inside Mosul alongside IS fighters.

It comes two weeks after the launch of a major offensive to retake the last major IS urban stronghold in Iraq.

Some 50,000 members of the Iraqi security forces, Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, Sunni Arab tribesmen and Shia Muslim militiamen are involved in the operation, which is backed by US-led coalition air strikes.

They have already retaken dozens of villages and towns surrounding Mosul, and on Thursday pushed further into the city's eastern outskirts.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose real name is Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim al-Badri, was born in 1971 to a lower-middle class Sunni Arab family in Samarra, Iraq.

He had a passion for Koranic recitation and was nicknamed "the Believer" for chastising his relatives for failing to live up to his stringent standards.

After pursuing his religious interests at university, Baghdadi gravitated towards violent ultra-conservatives in the Muslim Brotherhood.

He later embraced Salafist jihadism and founded the insurgent group Jaysh Ahl al-Sunnah wa al-Jamaah after the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

After a year in prison, Baghdadi travelled to Damascus to take control of propaganda for al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI). The group would later be dissolved, in place of Islamic State in Iraq (ISI) - the former name for IS.

Baghdadi quickly rose through the ranks mainly due to his ability to bridge the gaps between the foreigners who founded the group and local Iraqis who joined later.

How is the advance going?

On Thursday, the head of the Iraqi military's Nineveh Operations Command, Lt-Gen Abdul Amir Yarallah, announced that units of the ninth armoured division and the third brigade had entered the eastern Intisar district.

An army source told the BBC that civilians had started to flee Intisar and the Sumer area, to the south, as the troops advanced and the fighting spread.

Clashes were also reported in the suburb of Kukjali and on the edge of the adjoining Karama district, where elite Counter-Terrorism Service forces are deployed.

The source also said that security forces were approaching the Iraqi police academy complex in the Shalalat area north-east of Mosul, meaning they would soon be close to the Qahira and Tahrir districts.

Meanwhile, the Shia-led Hashd al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary forces are focusing their efforts on retaking Tal Afar, a town about 50km (30 miles) to the west, which lies on the main road between Mosul and Raqqa, the de facto IS capital.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said people suspected of having ties to IS have been beaten, given electric shocks or dragged through the streets by cars as areas on the outskirts of Mosul were retaken by Sunni tribal militia fighters, according to eyewitnesses on the ground.

There are also concerns for the more than one million civilians who remain inside Mosul, with the Norwegian Refugee Council warning that their lives are in "grave danger" because of the fighting.

More than 21,700 civilians have fled since the offensive began on 17 October

Source:
courtesy of BBC NEWS

by BBC News

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