WarSclerotic

In a 24-minute audio recording, Baghdadi said, “The Israelis will soon see us in Palestine. This is no longer a war of the crusaders against us. The entire world is fighting us right now.”

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Saturday directly warned Israel, saying, “We are getting closer to you every day.”

The ISIS leader continued: “The Israelis thought that we forgot Palestine and that they had distracted us from it. That is not the case. We have not forgotten Palestine for one moment.

“Palestine will not be your land or your home. It will be a graveyard for you. Allah has gathered you in Palestine so that the Muslims may kill you. The leaders of the jihad fighters will surround you on a day you think is far, but we see it as close. We are coming closer to you day by day,” he concluded.

Baghdadi also claimed that his self-styled “caliphate” was doing well despite an unprecedented alliance against it, and he criticized the recently announced Saudi-led Islamic military coalition against terrorism.

The reclusive ISIS leader said airstrikes by the international coalition only increase his group’s determination and resolve. The message was Baghdadi’s first since May, and comes amid battlefield setbacks that ISIS has recently faced.

“It is unprecedented in the history of our ummah (Islamic nation) that all the world came against it in one battle, as it is happening today. It is the battle of all the disbelievers against all the Muslims,” Baghdadi said.

He said the U.S.-led alliance does “not scare us … nor do they scatter our resolve because we are the victors in any event.”

Baghdadi taunted the United States for not putting boots on the ground. “They do not dare to come, because their hearts are full of fear from the mujahideen,” or holy warriors, he said.

“America and its allies dream of destroying the caliphate through their proxies and henchmen, and whenever an alliance of theirs fails or a tail is cut, they hasten to establish another, until they recently declared the Salouli [Saudi] alliance that was falsely called Islamic,” Baghdadi added.

If the Saudi-led alliance was truly Islamic, then it would fight the Syrian army and its Russian “masters,” as well as Shiites and Jews, Baghdadi said.

In the audio, Baghdadi also warned other nations taking part in the war against ISIS by saying: “We promise you, God permitting, that whoever participates in the war against the Islamic State will pay the price dearly.”

He also urged Muslims world over to join the fight, saying it is their Islamic duty to rise up everywhere.

In mid-December, Saudi Arabia announced the new, 34-member alliance against terrorism, to be based in the kingdom’s capital, Riyadh. But Shiite powerhouse Iran is not part of the new coalition; neither are Iraq and Syria, whose forces are battling to regain ground from the ISIS and whose governments are allied with Tehran.

Meanwhile, the assassination of a top Syrian rebel commander who led one of the most powerful groups battling Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces has dealt a significant setback to the opposition that could reshuffle the lineup of key players on the ground ahead of the planned peace talks in Geneva next month.

On Saturday, the Army of Islam and allied militant groups in Syria mourned the killing of Zahran Allouch, while government supporters and ISIS group cheered his death — a reflection of his role in fighting both sides in the Syrian civil war.

Allouch was killed in airstrikes that targeted the group’s headquarters during a meeting on Friday. He was instantly killed along with a number of senior commanders of his Army of Islam group and those of the ultra-conservative Ahrar al-Sham and the Faylaq al-Rahman groups.

The Syrian army claimed responsibility for the airstrike that killed Allouch, although many among the opposition blamed Russia, which has been bombing ISIS targets and other insurgent groups since late September.

Allouch was a controversial figure in the war and an authoritative rebel leader who commanded thousands of fighters on the doorstep of Damascus, the seat of Assad’s power. His death may have contributed — at least partially — to a delay in an agreed-on pullout of thousands of militants and their families from neighborhoods on the southern edge of Damascus.

The pullout, supposed to start on Saturday, was to involve mainly ISIS fighters who earlier this year overran the Yarmouk area, which is home to a Palestinian refugee camp and has been hotly contested and fought-over in the war, and two adjacent neighborhoods.

A Palestinian official in Damascus, Anwar Abdulhadi, told The Associated Press that the withdrawal is being delayed for “logistical reasons.” But Lebanon’s Hezbollah-run TV station Al Manar said that Allouch was a key figure in arranging the rare deal, and that his assassination has delayed its implementation. The report could not be immediately confirmed by the AP.

The Army of Islam swiftly appointed Essam al-Buwaydhani, a field commander known as Abu Hammam, as Allouch’s successor, and posted a video on the Internet late Friday saying Allouch’s killing “will only increase our fight” against Assad’s government and the Islamic State.

However, Aron Lund, a Syria expert, said the death of Allouch, who led the Army of Islam since it was founded around four years ago, could amount to “a decapitation strike” for the group.