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Isis Egypt affiliate posts image showing purported beheading of Croatian man Isis affiliate in Egypt posts image purportedly of beheaded Croatian man
(35 minutes later)
Islamic State’s affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai province has circulated an image online that purports to show the beheaded body of a Croatian hostage. Islamic State’s affiliate in Egypt’s Sinai province has circulated an image online that purports to show the beheaded body of a Croatian man abducted in the desert hinterland of Cairo in July.
The still image was released on Wednesday on social media. A caption on the image said 30-year-old Tomislav Salopek was killed “for his country’s participation in the war against the Islamic State”. The image bears some of the hallmarks of previous killings of foreign hostages by Isis in Iraq and Syria. The purported killing could mark a shift in tactics for the Isis affiliate in Egypt, which until now has focused the majority of its attacks on the Egyptian military and security forces.
Tomislav Salopek, 30, was abducted by armed men early on the morning of 22 July some 50km from Cairo, according to an early official account of the kidnapping. The gunmen stopped the car on a desert road, pulled his Egyptian driver out and drove away, according to the account. The car was later found nearby.
Salopek worked in Egypt as a subcontractor with the French geophysical services company CGG.
Related: Islamic State affiliate threatens to kill Croatian man kidnapped in Egypt
A spokesman from the Egyptian interior ministry’s press office said: “We have seen this news online but are currently making our own checks. If we confirm that it is indeed true, we will inform the media through a statement.”A spokesman from the Egyptian interior ministry’s press office said: “We have seen this news online but are currently making our own checks. If we confirm that it is indeed true, we will inform the media through a statement.”
Last week, an online video purportedly from Sinai province showed a man who identified himself as Tomislav Salopek saying the group would kill him in 48 hours if Muslim women in Egyptian jails were not freed. A statement released with the still image accused Croatia of participating in “the war against the Islamic State”. It comes a week after the Isis affiliate, known as Sinai Province after the region where it is based, threatened to kill Salopek within 48 hours unless the Egyptian government released “Muslim women” from prison.
Ardiseis Egypt, a unit of French firm CGG, which specialises in oil and gas geology, said last week one of its staff had been kidnapped on 22 July while travelling to Cairo. Salopek appeared in the video footage in a yellow jumpsuit, kneeling in front of a masked militant and articulating his captors’ demands in English.
Sinai Province emerged in 2014 when an existing insurgent group called Ansar Beit al-Maqdis proclaimed its affiliation with Isis and its leaders in Iraq and Syria. The group has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks that have killed hundreds of Egyptian soldiers and police.
In 2014 the group claimed it had killed an American oil worker named William Henderson who disappeared in a carjacking in Egypt’s Western Desert. The group released images of Henderson’s passport and identification cards, but did not release any Isis-style footage purporting to show his death.
In February Isis-backed militants in Libya executed 21 Coptic Christians. In response, Egypt launched airstrikes in Libya.