Summary
COLOMBO: No longer burdened by territory and administration, Daesh (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi outlined the new path forward for his group: Widen your reach, connect with far-flung militant groups and exhaust your enemies with a "war of attrition".
Though disheveled and never standing up in the video released Monday, Baghdadi's appearance alone contradicted past Russian and Iraqi claims the militant leader had been killed during the long war targeting the militants.
No longer an administrator, Baghdadi wants to be seen as an insurgent leader.
Militant propaganda by Daesh supporters online recently threatened India and Bangladesh, where Daesh attacked for the first time in some two years this week.
The militants involved in the attacks that killed more than 250 people followed a local extremist leader, but more than 30 Sri Lankans are believed to have once been Daesh fighters in Syria and Iraq.
Now mass casualty assaults like the 2015 attacks on the Bataclan theater in Paris may be planned much closer to local militants' homes, like the Easter attack in Sri Lanka.
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