After a nearly yearlong silence, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-declared caliph of the Islamic State, released a blistering audio recording imploring his forces to remain firm in the face of the American-backed Iraqi offensive in Mosul and excoriating those who might consider fleeing.
“Know that the value of staying on your land with honor is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame,” he said, adding: “This war is yours. Turn the dark night of the infidels into day, destroy their homes and make rivers of their blood.”
The last time Mr. Baghdadi addressed his followers was in a recording released Dec. 26. His silence since then has led to persistent rumors that he had been wounded or killed. He was not heard from even after one of his closest associates — the extremist organization’s spokesman, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, who headed the group’s efforts to export terror abroad, including overseeing attacks in Paris and Brussels — was killed in an airstrike in August.
The terrorist leader’s tone in the new recording at times suggested an air of panic, as if he was trying to shore up his fighters and enjoin them to continue battle, promising them heavenly rewards: “Oh soldiers of the caliphate, if you stand in the line of fire from America’s jets and its allies, then stand firm.”
He added: “Know that if the sky collapses onto the earth, God will make room for the believers to breathe.”
The new 31-minute recording, which was uploaded Wednesday on one of the Islamic State’s channels on the encrypted app Telegram, eulogized both Mr. Adnani and Abu Muhammad al-Furqan, the head of the Islamic State’s media operations, whose death was made public in October.
Although he did not refer to Mosul by name, Mr. Baghdadi mentioned the fighting in Nineveh Province, the administrative region that includes the city, the second-largest in Iraq with a population of more than one million. Mosul’s fall to the Islamic State in June 2014 was the group’s most impressive territorial gain.
In the recording, Mr. Baghdadi railed against the Iraqi campaign to recapture Mosul and said the number of troops massed to attack the Islamic State was evidence of the group’s strength.
Analysts were divided on the significance of Mr. Baghdadi’s omission of Mosul by name. Charlie Winter, a senior researcher at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, described it as the “elephant in the room” in a series of Twitter messages. “I’m astonished that Baghdadi doesn’t refer directly to #Mosul. Astonished,” he wrote.
But others, including Hassan Hassan, the co-author of a book on the Islamic State, wrote, “I don’t think it’s significant.” Nineveh, which Mr. Baghdadi does mention, “is also the name of the overall operation in northern Iraq,” Mr. Hassan said.
Still, the release and timing of the recording, days after Iraqi troops pushed into the city limits of Mosul, liberating some of its suburbs and reinstating a government presence to those areas for the first time in more than two years, seemed intended to buoy Mr. Baghdadi’s fighters.
Mr. Baghdadi, who was briefly held at Camp Bucca by the United States military, rose to prominence in 2014, when he declared the establishment of a caliphate and appointed himself caliph in a speech at a mosque in Mosul.
Since then, he has remained a reclusive figure, and only the barest outlines of his biography are known.
As the Islamic State grew in prominence, Mr. Baghdadi’s appearances grew more rare, as did his audio recordings, fueling unsubstantiated reports that he had been wounded or killed.
