An Islamic State affiliate released a video yesterday threatening to kill a Croatian hostage if Egyptian authorities do not release “Muslim women” held in prison within 48 hours, a day before the country plans to unveil a highly promoted new extension of the Suez Canal.
The video, circulated on social media by Islamic State sympathisers, shows a man wearing a yellow jumpsuit kneeling in the desert before a knife-wielding masked man in military fatigues. A black Islamic flag often used by the extremists flutters next to him. The video identifies itself as coming from the media arm of the Islamic State affiliate in Egypt’s lawless Sinai Peninsula.
Reading calmly from a note in English, the man identifies himself as Tomislav Salopek, a married, 30-year-old father of two, adding that Islamic State fighters captured him on July 22. If Egyptian authorities do not act, he said, “the soldiers from Wilayet Sina will kill me.” Wilayet Sina is the Arabic phrase for the Egyptian group calling itself the Sinai Province of the Islamic State.
The soldiers from Wilayet Sina will kill me
It was not clear where the video was shot. The Associated Press could not independently verify the footage, entitled “A Message to the Egyptian government,” though it was shot in the style of previous Islamic State propaganda videos in which they threaten and behead hostages.
The reference to “Muslim women” apparently referred to Islamists who have been arrested in a broad government crackdown on dissent.
Egypt, a majority Muslim country, now holds thousands of Islamists and suspected supporters of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group in prison following the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Croatia’s Foreign Ministry late last month said that one of its nationals with the same initials had been kidnapped in Cairo on July 22 while on the way to work.
The company, which Salopek identified as France’s CGG Ardiseis, works in the oil and gas sector and has a branch office in Cairo’s leafy suburb of Maadi, where many expats and diplomats live.