ISIS Video Shows Beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians
A video has emerged showing the beheadings purportedly of 21 Egyptian Christians who had been kidnapped by Islamic State (IS) militants in Libya. The footage shows a group wearing orange ...
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ISIS Video Shows Beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians - Video
Story highlights Jets target ISIS camps, training areas and weapons depots, Egypt's military says "Avenging Egyptian blood ... is our right and duty," it says in a statement The killings of the Egyptian Christians in Libya has deepened concerns about ISIS' reach
Egyptian F-16 jets took off in the early hours of Monday to bomb ISIS camps, training areas and weapons depots in Libya, the Egyptian military said.
"Avenging Egyptian blood and punishing criminals and murderers is our right and duty," it said in a statement broadcast on state television.
It wasn't immediately clear where in Libya the airstrikes hit or how much damage and casualties they might have caused.
The bombing raids came after ISIS released a gruesome video Sunday that appeared to show the beheadings of the Egyptian Christians on a beach.
The footage, bearing many of the hallmarks of previous ISIS hostage execution videos, has intensified international concerns about ISIS' deepening reach into countries far beyond its strongholds in Syria and Iraq.
The slickly produced video shows the apparent mass execution with jihadists in black standing behind each of the victims, who are all dressed in orange jumpsuits with their hands cuffed behind them.
Some of the hostages cry out "Oh God" and "Oh Jesus" as they are pushed to their knees.
The five-minute video, released by ISIS' propaganda wing al-Hayat Media, includes a masked English-speaking jihadi who says, "The sea you have hidden Sheikh Osama bin Laden's body in, we swear to Allah, we will mix it with your blood."
The video threatens Egypt, which shares a long border with Libya, and also Europe, whose shores lie across the Mediterranean Sea.
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Egypt says it bombed ISIS targets in Libya after killings ...
By Ahmed Tolba and Michael Georgy
CAIRO Sun Feb 15, 2015 6:29pm EST
CAIRO (Reuters) - Islamic State released a video on Sunday that appeared to show the beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi warned that his country would respond to the deaths as it saw fit.
Speaking on national television hours after the release of the video, Sisi said Cairo would choose the "necessary means and timing to avenge the criminal killings".
Egypt's state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead.
The beheadings could stiffen Sisi's resolve in dealing with security threats from militants thriving in neighboring Libya's chaos who want to topple his U.S.-backed government.
Egypt has denied reports in the past that it had taken part, along with its close ally the United Arab Emirates, in air strikes against militants based in Libya.
The footage showing the deaths of the Egyptians appeared on the Twitter feed of a website that supports Islamic State, which has seized parts of Iraq and Syria and has also beheaded Western hostages.
In the video, militants in black marched the captives, dressed in orange jump suits, to a beach the group said was near Tripoli. They were forced down onto their knees, then beheaded.
A caption on the five-minute video read: "The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church." Before the killings, one of the militants stood with a knife in his hand and said: "Safety for you crusaders is something you can only wish for."
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Sisi warns of response after Islamic State kills 21 ...
TIME World Libya Beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya Shows ISIS Branching Out Ahmed MasriAlmasry Alyoum/EPA Egyptians protest in Cairo what they characterise as government inaction in reaction to the kidnapping of Coptic Christians in Libya, Feb. 13, 2015. Militants in Libya represent a "second front" in ISIS's war against the West
The Egyptian government said Sunday that a video apparently showing the execution of Coptic Egyptian hostages in Libya by militants allied to the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) was genuine, underscoring the groups global reach and the unity of message among its adherents.
The five-minute clip, published online on Sunday, depicts the hostages believed to be 21 Christian Coptic laborers from Egypt, kidnapped from the city of Sirt being marched onto a beach where they are forced onto the sand and then killed by knife-wielding executioners.
One of the killers, dressed in camouflage, speaks in English. We will conquer Rome, he declares, pointing his knife toward the sea.
The video has similar qualities to the filmed executions of ISIS hostages in Iraq and Syria. The hostages wear the same orange jumpsuits as the Western hostages, intended as a reference to the uniforms worn by prisoners in the U.S. detention center in Guantnamo Bay, Cuba.
In a televised address, Egyptian President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi said his country reserved the right to retaliate for the killings. He also reiterated an offer to facilitate Egyptians evacuation from Libya and imposed a ban on citizens traveling to Libya. The President also convened a meeting of senior security officials to discuss a response to the crisis.
The mass killings by a group that identified itself in the video as the Tripoli Province of ISIS gives a stark illustration of the groups influence in Libya, a country consumed by upheaval since dictator Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown in an uprising backed by NATO in 2011. Two rival governments and a variety of militia groups are currently locked in a multipolar fight for control of the country.
I think its possible that there are currently more Daesh adherents in Libya than in any other country in the world except for Iraq and Syria, says Christopher Chivvis, a senior analyst at the Santa Monicabased Rand Corp.
Its possible that Libya is now emerging as a sort of second front in [ISISs] effort to expand from a regional into a global organization, he says. I dont think theres a direct command-and-control kind of relationship where core ISIS is able to, with any degree of confidence, order specific operations in Libya. I think theres moral and probably also financial and potentially other forms of support.
A militia group in eastern Libya declared its affiliation with ISIS last year. Since then, fighters allied to the group have claimed responsibility for attacks across the country, including an assault on a luxury hotel in Tripoli in January.
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Beheading of Coptic Christians in Libya Shows ISIS Branching Out
Egypt said Monday it has launched airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Libya after the extremist group released a grisly video showing the beheading of several Egyptian Coptic Christians it had held hostage for weeks.
A spokesman for the Armed Forces General Command announced the strikes on state radio Monday, marking the first time Cairo has publicly acknowledged taking military action in neighboring Libya, where extremist groups seen as a threat to both countries have taken root in recent years.
The statement said the warplanes targeted weapons caches and training camps before returning safely. It said the strikes were "to avenge the bloodshed and to seek retribution from the killers."
"Let those far and near know that Egyptians have a shield that protects them," it said.
Libya's air force meanwhile announced it had launched strikes in the eastern city of Darna, which was taken over by an Islamic State affiliate last year. The announcement, on the Facebook page of the Air Force Chief of Staff, did not provide further details.
The video purporting to show the mass beheading of Coptic Christian hostages was released late Sunday by militants in Libya affiliated with the Islamic State group.
The killings raise the possibility that the extremist group - which controls about a third of Syria and Iraq in a self-declared caliphate - has established a direct affiliate less than 500 miles (800 kilometers) from the southern tip of Italy. One of the militants in the video makes direct reference to that possibility, saying the group now plans to "conquer Rome."
The militants had been holding 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian laborers rounded up from the city of Sirte in December and January. It was not clear from the video whether all 21 hostages were killed.
It was one of the first such beheading videos from an Islamic State group affiliate to come from outside the group's core territory in Syria and Iraq.
Libya in recent months has seen the worst unrest since the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi, which will complicate any efforts to combat the country's many Islamic extremist groups.
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Egypt Strikes ISIS Targets In Libya After Grisly Video Is Released