In early May 2019, after almost 5 years since his last public appearance in the summer of 2014, al-Baghdadi appeared in a video declaring his organisation's new geographical ambitions. After the loss of the territories it once occupied in the Levant and the crumbling of the 'Caliphate' project, the leader of the group boasted in his speech of "new oaths of allegiance extended to him from jihadis in Mali, Burkina Faso, Afghanistan, and Sri Lanka" as well as in Turkey. According to Syrian-American journalist Hassan Hassan, in a comment in Foreign Policy magazine, "Baghdadi's video marks the failure of the U.S.-led coalition to capture Baghdadi and dismantle his organization.