El Baghdadi is alive: The leader of the Islamic State on video after five years

The leader of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, appeared today for the first time in five years in a video published by the extremist propaganda website El Furkan.

The video shows an ID leader with a red beard in black clothes, sitting on the floor next to a machine gun, the AP agency reported.

In the 18-minute video, El-Baghdadi says the attacks in Sri Lanka are ISIS's response to losses in Syria.

It is his first recording since he gave a speech at the Al Nusra Mosque in Mosuk in 2014.