SELF-PROCLAIMED caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi of terror group Isis appeared to come out of the shadows at the weekend, with videos posted online showing him leading Friday prayers at Mosul’s Great Mosque.

Iraqi Lieutenant-General Qassim al-Moussawi said yesterday security forces were still analysing the video to determine whether the speaker was really Mr Baghdadi.

He wore black robes and a black turban, said to be a sign of his claim to descend from the prophet Mohammed, and told his audience it was “a burden to accept this responsibility to be in charge of you.”

Mr Baghdadi had previously directed his extremist organisation from behind the scenes but had faced criticism for this after declaring himself caliph at the start of last week, since caliphs are traditionally supposed to live among their people.

He delivered a sermon emphasising an extreme form of fundamentalist Islam similar to the Wahhabi sect dominant in Saudi Arabia.

And photographs and videos posted online at the weekend showed that Isis forces had been destroying Shia mosques and both Shia and Sunni shrines in the historic city, bulldozing and dynamiting the ancient buildings.

The city’s Chaldean and Orthodox cathedrals have been occupied and Christian religious iconography removed.

Wahhabi Islam considers most buildings honouring individuals to be idolatrous and the destruction of shrines by its adherents has a long history in Saudi Arabia and among al-Qaida fighters.