IS affiliate in Egypt releases image of slain Croat captive
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| FILE - This image made from a militant video posted on a social media site on Wednesday, Aug. 5, 2015, which has been verified and is consistent with other AP reporting, purports to show a militant standing next to another man who identifies himself as 30-year-old Tomislav Salopek, kneeling down as he reads a message at an unknown location. An online image purports to show the Croatian hostage being held by an Islamic State affiliate in Egypt has been beheaded. |
CAIRO (AP) --
A Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt by Islamic State militants has
been beheaded, according to a gruesome image circulated Wednesday online
- a killing that, if confirmed, would be the first of its kind
involving a foreign captive in the country, undermining government
efforts to project stability and buttress an economic turnaround.
The
killing of the 30-year-old oil and gas sector surveyor would deal a
blow to President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi's attempts to burnish the
country's reputation a week after he unveiled a new extension of the
Suez canal in a much-hyped ceremony attended by international
dignitaries.
It will also likely rattle
companies with expatriate workers in Egypt and cast a cloud over hopes
of boosting international investment and tourism following years of
unrest in the wake of Egypt's Arab Spring uprising.
The
still photo, circulated by IS supporters on social media, appeared to
show the body of Tomislav Salopek, a married father of two, wearing a
beige jumpsuit like the one he wore in a previous video. A black flag
used by the Islamic State group and a knife were planted in the sand
next to his body.
A caption in Arabic said
Salopek was killed "for his country's participation in the war against
the Islamic State," and came after a deadline had passed for Egypt to
meet his captors' demands to free jailed Islamist women.
The
picture contained an inset of two Egyptian newspaper reports, one
declaring Croatia's support for Egypt's war against terrorism and
another noting Croatia's backing of the Kurds, who have been battling
the IS group in Syria and Iraq. Croatian troops fought in the U.S.-led
coalition in Iraq and still serve in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan.
In
a televised address to the nation, Croatian Prime Minister Zoran
Milanovic said authorities there could not confirm the killing with
certainty.
"We cannot 100 percent confirm it
is true, but what we see looks horrific. A confirmation may not come for
several days," he said, adding that the search for Salopek will
continue as long as there is a glimmer of hope.
In
remarks posted on the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's Facebook page,
Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry said authorities were working to verify
the authenticity of the claim.
In Salopek's hometown, anguished residents refused to believe the reports of his beheading.
"No,
no, no," Goran Blazanovic kept repeating as he sat in a cafe in
Vrpolje, Croatia, with other grim-looking friends and family of the
Croat captive, who kept searching their smartphones for signs that would
give them hope that the reports were mistaken.
"Nothing is proven," Blazanovic insisted. "We hope that he will come back home to his wife and children."
Al-Azhar,
the Sunni Muslim world's prestigious religious institute, condemned the
apparent killing, calling it a "demonic act of which all religions and
human traditions are innocent." The statement also said Islamic law
stipulates that it is forbidden to shed the blood of foreigners.
Exiled
members of the Muslim Brotherhood, which Egypt brands a terrorist
organization, said the beheading was a sign the government had failed to
curb the rise of extremism.
Concerns were also raised about the economic impact on the country.
"It's
obviously bad for the perceptions foreign investors have of Egypt, and I
think it's probably bad for the perceptions that potential tourists
have," said Hani Sabra, Middle East and North Africa head of the New
York-based risk consultancy Eurasia Group.
"This
increases the perception that North Africa as a region is unstable
across the board - Libya, Tunisia, Egypt," he said, adding that he
didn't think it would undermine el-Sissi's government domestically.
"This
is something the authorities will use to advance the narrative that
they've pushed that they are fighting ruthless, bloodthirsty
terrorists," Sabra said.
The Associated Press
could not independently verify the image, though it bore markings
consistent with the filmed hostage demand released last week by Egypt's
Islamic State affiliate, the Sinai Province of the Islamic State. It was
not clear where that video was shot.
In that
footage, the group set an Aug. 7 deadline for Egyptian authorities to
free female Islamist prisoners detained in a sweeping government
crackdown following the 2013 military ouster of the country's Islamist
president.
The videotaped demand was shot in the style of previous IS propaganda videos.
The
sister of an Egyptian woman jailed on charges of belonging to the
Muslim Brotherhood, Esraa el-Taweel, said she spoke to her sister about
the threat against Salopek's life during a recent prison visit.
"She
rejected that the life of an innocent man who is not responsible for
other detainees be negotiated," said Doaa el-Taweel. "She rejected the
whole thing."
As last week's deadline passed,
security forces were searching for Salopek across the country, focusing
on the western provinces of Matrouh and Wadi Gedid, which border Libya,
as well as Beheira in the Nile Delta and Giza, part of greater Cairo, an
Egyptian security official said.
Speaking on
condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to
journalists, he said Salopek's driver, who was left behind by the
kidnappers, said the gunmen who seized the Croat on a highway west of
Cairo had Bedouin accents.
That suggests they
could have come from a variety of isolated places in Egypt, including
the restive northern Sinai Peninsula, where Egypt's Islamic State
affiliate is based, or the vast Western Desert, which is a gateway to
volatile and lawless Libya, home to its own Islamic State branch.
Salopek,
a surveyor working with France's CGG Ardiseis, was abducted on July 22.
The company has an office in the leafy Cairo suburb of Maadi, where
many expatriates and diplomats live.
Egypt has
seen an increase in violence since the ouster of Islamist President
Mohammed Morsi, with attacks by suspected Islamic extremists in both the
Sinai Peninsula and the mainland focusing primarily on security forces.
But
this would be the first time the local Islamic State affiliate has
captured and then beheaded a foreigner in Egypt, a major escalation as
the country tries to rebuild its crucial tourism industry after years of
unrest following the 2011 revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.
Last
December, the affiliate claimed responsibility for the killing of an
American oil worker with the Texas-based energy company Apache Corp,
which had reported that one of its supervisors was killed several months
earlier in an apparent carjacking in the Western Desert.
Militants
have also targeted foreign interests, including the Italian Consulate,
which was hit with a car bomb last month. That attack came two days
after another bomb killed Prosecutor General Hisham Barakat in an
upscale Cairo neighborhood.
The Islamic State
group holds about a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its
self-declared "caliphate." In Syria, IS militants have killed foreign
journalists and aid workers, starting with American journalist James
Foley last year.
In Libya, an IS affiliate
released a video in February showing its fighters beheading a group of
Coptic Christians from Egypt, and in April, another showing them
beheading and shooting to death groups of Ethiopian Christians. Another
video, released in February, showed them burning to death a Jordanian
pilot who was captured when his F-16 crashed during a U.S.-led air raid
last year.
