IS leader calls for attacks on Saudi Arabia

Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called for attacks against the rulers of Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name on Thursday, saying his self-declared caliphate was expanding there and in four other Arab countries.

Baghdadi also said a US.-led military campaign against his group in Syria and Iraq was failing and he called for “volcanoes of jihad” the world over.

The authenticity of the speech could not be confirmed as the audio recording was carried on Islamic State-run social media. However there appears to be a similarity to a previous speech delivered by Baghdadi in July in a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul in July, the last time he spoke in public.

It followed contradictory accounts out of Iraq after US. air strikes last Friday about whether he was wounded in a raid. The United States said on Tuesday it could not confirm whether he was killed or wounded in Iraq following a strike near the city of Falluja.

President Obama has said the United States aims to degrade and eventually destroy Islamic State, which has reshaped the Middle East by seizing large areas of Iraq and Syria and is imposing its radical interpretation of Sunni Islam.

Since the Islamic State launched an offensive in Iraq in June, Riyadh has sent thousands of troops to the border area.

At least 1,000 army soldiers, 1,000 national guardsmen and three helicopter units have arrived to reinforce the border area near the town of Arar since Islamic State’s advance in June, the commander of Saudi border guards in the area said in July.

In June, King Abdullah pledged to take “all measures” to protect Saudi Arabia from Islamic State, which it has labelled a terrorist organisation.