The Islamic State group's elusive supremo Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made his first purported appearance in five years in a propaganda video released Monday, acknowledging IS's defeat at Baghouz while threatening "revenge" attacks.

The world's most wanted man was last seen in Mosul in 2014, announcing the birth of IS's much-feared "caliphate" across swathes of Iraq and Syria, and appears to have outlived the Islamic proto-state.

In the video released Monday by IS's Al-Furqan media outlet, the man said to be Baghdadi referred to the months-long fight for IS's final redoubt Baghouz, which ended in March.

"The battle for Baghouz is over," he said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have been blurred.

He referred to a string of IS defeats, including its onetime Iraqi capital Mosul and Sirte in Libya, but insisted the jihadists had not "surrendered" territory.

"God ordered us to wage 'jihad.' He did not order us to win," he said.

In a segment in which the man is not on camera, his voice described the April 21 Easter attacks in Sri Lanka, which killed 253 people and wounded nearly 500, as "vengeance for their brothers in Baghouz".

The man insisted IS's operations against the West were part of a "long battle," and that IS would continue to "take revenge" for members who had been killed.

"There will be more to come after this battle," he said.

- 'It's survivable' -

The speaker also referred encouragingly to popular protests in Sudan and Algeria, apparently to demonstrate the video was recent.

"The mention of places like Sri Lanka and Sudan are largely to timestamp the video, to show that it wasn't created a long time ago," said Amarnath Amarasingam, senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.

He said the references to lost territory were also an effort to reshape IS's narrative.

"Part of the importance of someone like him is to contextualise the defeat... to show that this was either an expected turn of events, or that it might be unfortunate but that it's survivable," Amarasingam told AFP.

The speaker appeared in a white-walled room lined with cushions, but it was unclear exactly where or when the footage was shot.

He had a long grey beard that appeared dyed with henna and spoke slowly, often pausing for several seconds in the middle of his sentences.

An older-model Kalashnikov assault rifle, similar to those seen in videos of Al-Qaeda former chief Osama bin Laden, leans against the wall behind him.

At the end of the video, he appeared to examine monthly reports of IS's global activities, including in areas that have not been officially declared IS "provinces" yet.

The man in the 18-minute video was identified as Baghdadi by both the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks IS, and Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi expert on the group.

But the US-led coalition, which has backed operations in both Iraq and Syria to defeat IS, said it was still trying to "independently corroborate the validity of the video".

The United States has a $25-million bounty on Baghdadi's head.

- 'The Ghost' -

Born Ibrahim Awad al-Badri in 1971, Baghdadi came from modest beginnings in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and chose to study religion.

After US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, he was detained in the American-run Camp Bucca, where he is believed to have come of age as a jihadist.

He later rose through the ranks of Iraq's Al-Qaeda franchise and eventually took the helm in 2010, expanding into Syria in the midst of that country's war in 2013.

The following year, Baghdadi declared himself "caliph" of IS's sprawling territory in an infamous sermon from Mosul's famed Al-Nuri mosque.

He then lay low for years, earning him the nickname "The Ghost" amid repeated reports he had been killed or injured as IS's territory shrunk.

His last voice recording to his supporters was released in August, eight months after Iraq announced it had defeated IS and as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces closed in next door in Syria.

Some of those who fled Baghouz in the dying days of the "caliphate" claimed they had been ordered to leave by Baghdadi, but the SDF at the time said it did not believe the jihadist figurehead was in Syria.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Islamic State group's elusive leader
Baghdad (AFP) April 29, 2019 - Islamic State group chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who purportedly appeared for the first time in five years in an IS propaganda video released Monday, remains the world's most wanted man, despite the jihadists' "caliphate" imploding weeks ago.

After declaring himself caliph in 2014, Baghdadi held sway over seven million people across swathes of Syria and Iraq, where IS implemented its brutal version of Islamic law.

But that land has been whittled down to disjointed sleeper cells by years of fighting, including a ferocious bombing campaign by a US-led coalition.

It is unclear when the footage was filmed, but the man said to be Baghdadi referred to last week's deadly attack in Sri Lanka and to the months-long fight for IS's final bastion Baghouz, which ended in late March.

"The battle for Baghouz is over," he said, sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have been blurred.

"God ordered us to wage 'jihad.' He did not order us to win," he said.

Reclusive even when IS was at the peak of its power, the 47-year-old Iraqi, who suffers from diabetes, was rumoured to have been wounded or killed several times.

His whereabouts have never been confirmed.

"He only has three companions: his older brother Jumaa, his driver and bodyguard Abdullatif al-Jubury, whom he has known since childhood, and his courier Saud al-Kurdi," said Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi specialist on IS.

Hashemi said the quartet is likely laying low somewhere in Syria's vast Badia desert, which stretches from the eastern border with Iraq to the sweeping province of Homs.

That is where his son Hudhayfa al-Badri was reportedly killed in July by three Russian guided missiles, Hashemi added.

- 'The Ghost' -

Nicknamed "The Ghost", he had made no public appearances since he delivered a sermon at Mosul's famed Al-Nuri mosque in 2014, when he declared himself "caliph".

His last voice recording to his supporters was released in August, eight months after Iraq announced it had defeated IS and as US-backed forces closed in next door in Syria.

But even as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces pressed the "final battle" against IS's last sliver of territory earlier this year, a spokesman for the US-backed group said the elusive leader was likely not there.

"We do not think he is in Syria," Mustefa Bali told AFP as the fall of Baghouz neared, without elaborating.

Some of those who fled the final holdout in the dying days of the caliphate claimed they had been ordered to leave by Baghdadi.

"Had the caliph not ordered it, we would not have left," one woman told AFP in late February, referring to Baghdadi, who was not believed to have been in Baghouz as the "caliphate" crumbled.

Keeping a low profile -- in contrast to slain Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden -- has helped Baghdadi survive for years.

Born Ibrahim Awad al-Badri in 1971, the passionate football fan came from modest beginnings in Samarra, north of Baghdad.

His high school results were not good enough for law school and his poor eyesight prevented him from joining the army, so he moved to the Baghdad district of Tobchi to study Islam.

"He had a vision, early on, of where he wanted to go and what kind of organisation he wanted to create," said Sofia Amara, author of a 2017 documentary that unveiled exclusive documents on Baghdadi.

After US-led forces invaded Iraq in 2003, he founded his own insurgent organisation but it never carried out major attacks.

When he was arrested and held in a US detention facility in southern Iraq in February 2004, he was still very much a second- or third-tier jihadist.

But it was Camp Bucca -- later dubbed "the University of Jihad" -- where Baghdadi came of age as a jihadist.

"People there realised that this nobody, this shy guy was an astute strategist," Amara said.

He was released at the end of 2004 for lack of evidence. Iraqi security services arrested him twice subsequently, in 2007 and 2012, but let him go because they did not know who he was.

- Brutal strategist -

In 2005, the father of five pledged allegiance to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the brutal leader of Iraq's Al-Qaeda franchise.

Zarqawi was killed by an American drone strike in 2006, and after his successor was also eliminated, Baghdadi took the helm in 2010.

He revived the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), expanded into Syria in 2013 and declared independence from Al-Qaeda.

In the following years, Baghdadi's Islamic State group captured swathes of territory, set up a brutal system of government, and inspired thousands to join the "caliphate" from abroad.

Baghdadi was raised in a family divided between a religious clan and officers loyal to Saddam's secular Baath party.

Years later, his jihadist group incorporated ex-Baathists, capitalising on the bitterness many officers felt after the American move to dissolve the Iraqi army in 2003.

That gave his leadership the military legitimacy he had lacked and formed a solid backbone of what was to become IS, combining extreme religious propaganda with ferocious guerrilla efficiency.

Uncharismatic and an average orator, Baghdadi was described by his repudiated ex-wife Saja al-Dulaimi, who now lives in Lebanon, as a "normal family man" who was good with children.

He is thought to have had three wives in total; Iraqi Asma al-Kubaysi, Syrian Isra al-Qaysi and another spouse, more recently, from the Gulf.

He has been accused of repeatedly raping girls and women he kept as "sex slaves", including a pre-teen Yazidi girl and US aid worker Kayla Mueller, who was subsequently killed.

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Islamic State's 'caliphate' in Syria, Iraq
Baghdad (AFP) April 29, 2019
Ousted in March from the final scrap of territory under their control, Islamic State group jihadists remain scattered in the Syrian desert and still carry out attacks. Here is a recap of the key events since the jihadists declared their "caliphate" in June 2014 to the purported appearance Monday of the group's elusive leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. - Caliphate - On June 29, 2014 jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) proclaim a "caliphate" led by Baghdadi across territory ... read more