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The last time Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared on camera was the summer of 2014, when from the pulpit of a mosque in Mosul he declared himself “caliph” of the first modern-day caliphate.
His fiefdom, known as the Islamic State, would cover huge swathes of Iraq and Syria and more than 8 million people.
In the intervening years he has released only a handful of audio statements, but on Monday he appeared for the first time on video.
The timing of the release - which is a huge risk for the reclusive leader to take - is interesting.
With no caliphate to rule over since the fall of the last of Isil’s territory last month, his role had become unclear.
Baghdadi’s absence had earned him some criticism from the group’s militants, who fought to the death for the leader in the Syrian town of Baghuz long after he had fled to safety.
But in the video he appears strong and confident. He has swapped the religious garb he appeared wearing in Mosul for a more military get-up, as he sits on the floor next to an old Kalashnikov (channeling Osama Bin Laden and the late leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used the same model).
It suggests he is still very much in charge and involved in the running of the terrorist organisation. Indeed, he flicks through operational booklets on Isil’s “wilayats” or provinces where the group has fighters.
It is important to note that he is surrounded by followers, which shows to the world that he is not alone.
He is believed to travel with only a small number of comrades, including his older brother Jumaa, his driver and bodyguard Abdullatif al-Jubury, whom he has known since childhood, and his courier Saud al-Kurdi.
It is not known if these are the three who appear alongside him in the video as their faces have been blurred.
US intelligence will be poring over to the video to find clues as to his whereabouts, which has been assumed to either be in the vast Badia desert in central Syria or in scrubland in Anbar, western Iraq.
Baghdadi, the world’s most-wanted man with a $25m bounty on his head, has a sophisticated security procedure which has kept him alive over the years.
He has taken a certain level of precaution in the video - covering the walls (which might have given clues such as plug points) with a white sheet.
The only possible hints are the fabric of the cushions and the thin mattress on which he sits - a common feature in homes in this part of the Arab world.
Some anti-Isil activists point to the material, which they say was likely produced in the northern Syrian industrial area outside Aleppo.
Others comment that it could have been exported to northwestern Iraq, where it is popular.
They will be able to narrow down the filming of the video to somewhere between April 12 and April 21. During his 16 minutes on camera he references events that took place on the 12th, but his comments on the Sri Lanka attacks - which took place on the 21st - are made only on audio. This suggests they were added later.
His message to his supporters is that Isil is not finished, it is simply entering a new stage. This is something the terror group has already demonstrated with post-caliphate attacks.
The video shows that while the West, “the Crusader infidels”, may have destroyed the physical caliphate, it has not defeated the ideology behind it.
“The proto-state in Syria and Iraq was great, but it has enabled something supposedly even greater,” Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi, a London-based researcher who tracks Isil and maintains a database of the group’s archives, warned. “In Sri Lanka, we are looking at that 'something even greater'.
"It's grim to say so, but we should expect more attempts at attacks like these more regularly for the foreseeable future. Sri Lanka was not a one-off. If anything, it was a test run."