A video purportedly made by Islamic State and posted on social media sites yesterday appeared to show IS militants shooting and beheading approximately 30 Ethiopian Christians in Libya.

Reuters was not able to verify the authenticity of the video, but these latest killings resemble past violence carried out by Islamic State, which has expan-ded its reach from strongholds in Iraq and Syria to the conflict-ridden Libya.

The video, in which militants call Christians crusaders and say they are out to kill Muslims, showed about 15 men being beheaded on a beach and another group of the same size shot in the head in an area of desert scrubland.

Both groups of men are referred to in a subtitle as “worshippers of the cross belonging to the hostile Ethiopian church”.

Until late yesterday Libyan officials were still not immediately available for comment.

A senior Ethiopian official said the government was gathering information about the reported killings and would respond when it had more details.

The official said Ethiopia had no embassy in Libya, making it more difficult to verify the conditions of the incident.

Christians will not be safe unless they embrace Islam or pay protection money

Militants professing loyalty to Islamic State have claimed several high-profile attacks on foreigners in Libya this year, including an assault on the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli and the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians in February.

The killings of the Egyptians prompted retaliation from Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, who ordered air strikes on Islamic State targets in various parts of Libya.

In the latest video, a man dressed in black and clutching a pistol stood directly behind some of the victims.

Black smoke billows in the sky yesterday above areas where clashes are taking place between pro-government forces, who are backed by the locals, and the Shura Council of Libyan Revolutionaries, an alliance of former anti-Gaddafi rebels who have joined forces with the Islamist group Ansar al-Sharia, in Benghazi. Photo: Reuters

“Muslim blood shed under the hands of your religions is not cheap,” he says, looking at the camera. “To the nation of the cross: We are now back again.”

The video concludes with a shocking warning that Christians – the nation of the cross – will not be safe unless they either embrace Islam or pay protection money.

Islamic State controls large parts of Iraq and Syria and wants to redraw the existing map of the Middle East.

It is not clear how many fighters the militant group has in oil-producer Libya.

Egyptian security officials are estimating that thousands of militants who share Islamic State’s ideology have moved from the Sinai Peninsula to Libya after the army toppled President Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013.