Islamic State threatens to execute Croatian hostage
CAIRO ( AFP) — Egypt’s affiliate of the Islamic State (IS) group threatened Wednesday to execute a Croatian kidnapped in Cairo last month within 48 hours if Muslim women jailed in Egypt are not freed.
The man is the first foreigner to be kidnapped and threatened with death by militants in Egypt since an Islamist insurgency erupted two years ago.
In a video posted online by the jihadists, the Croatian identifies himself as Tomislav Salopek working for French geoscience company CGG, and appears kneeling at the feet of a hooded man holding a knife.
Reading from a sheet of paper, he said he will be executed within 48 hours if Egypt’s government fails to release Muslim women held in prisons.
Salopek, wearing an orange jumpsuit, did not say when the countdown began.
He said he was kidnapped on July 22 by the Sinai Province group, IS’s Egyptian affiliate based in the Sinai Peninsula.
Formerly known as Ansar Beit al- Maqdis, the group changed its name when it pledged allegiance to IS in November.
In Zagreb, the foreign ministry said the “Croatian government... is doing its best to solve as soon as possible the difficult situation in which the Croatian citizen T.S. is,” identifying the hostage only with his initials.
Croatia’s Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic will travel to the Egyptian capital on Saturday, the ministry later added in another statement.