TERRORISM: Isil loyalists threaten to kill Croatian hostage in 48 hours in new video

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) loyalists in Egypt have threatened to murder a Croatian hostage kidnapped outside Cairo if the government of President Abdel Fattah al Sisi does not release female prisoners.

In a video released on Wednesday bearing the hallmarks of the lurid snuff films made by the extremist group in Syria and Iraq, a 30 year old man identified as Tomislav Salopek read a statement as he knelt at the feet of a knife-wielding militant. “They want to substitute me with the Muslim women arrested in Egyptian prisons,” he said. “This matter has to be achieved within 48hrs from now. If not, the soldiers from Wilayat Sinai will kill me.”

He did not say from when the countdown began.

Mr Salopek was kidnapped last month as his car left Cairo, the first incident of its kind near a city which remains a popular tourist destination. This is also the first time that Wilayat Sinai - or Sinai Province - has threatened to execute a western hostage.

It was not immediately clear whether more specific demands had been relayed to the Egyptian government, and no officials were available for comment on Wednesday evening.

Mr Salopek, an employee of the French geophysical services company CGG, is understood to have been abducted in the early hours of July 22. Sources familiar with the case said that militants had pulled Mr Salopek’s Egyptian driver out of the car before driving away with the Croatian national inside.
The car was found a short distance away, still filled with Mr Salopek’s belongings.
Based in Egypt’s restive Sinai peninsula, Sinai Province has been locked in battle with the army since the overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi two years ago. It has grown in confidence in recent months, staging increasingly complex attacks on security personnel in the area.
The group has regularly invoked a searing police crackdown on dissent as a justification for its militancy, depicting itself as a defender of Egypt’s Muslims. It has previously focused on the fate of female prisoners, some of whom have faced rape and other forms of sexual abuse at the hands of security officials.
The threat from Sinai Province threatened to torpedo the exultant pro-government fanfare dominating Egypt’s state and private media ahead tomorrow’s inauguration of the New Suez Canal.
One of Mr Sisi’s most personalised mega-projects, the new waterway will be formally opened in front of dignitaries from around the world.
Mr Sisi was elected on a platform promising security and economic prosperity, both of which have featured heavily in publicity for the $8.5 billion new canal. Although Egypt’s economy has enjoyed a gentle recovery on his watch, Islamist militancy has flourished.
Last month saw the emergence of two more jihadist groups in the capital, Cairo. The first, linked to Isil, announced its presence with a deadly suicide car bomb outside an Italian consulate building in the heart of the city. The second, an al Qaeda affiliate headed by the Egyptian special forces veteran, is suspected of involvement in an attempted suicide attack at Karnak Temple in Luxor in June.

Source: +TheTelegraph