French firm CGG confirms subcontractor held by Islamic State

Reading from a paper he is holding, Salopek says that Egyptian authorities must release all female Muslim prisoners in 48 hours or the militants will kill him.

In the video, Salopek identifies himself and says that Islamic State fighters captured him on July 22.

Jihadists in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula have threatened to kill a Croatian citizen who was reported kidnapped in Cairo last month, confirming the militants’ first known abduction of a foreign national and marking a unsafe escalation in the country’s growing insurgency.

In the video, 31-year-old Salopek reads out the message on his knees, while a masked man holds a knife beside him.

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

“Ardiseis Egypt acknowledges that he is the hostage appearing on the video released today by the Sinai Province of Islamic State”, the company said in a statement on Wednesday. A black ISIS flag is buried in the sand in the background.

Identified as 30-year-old Tomislav Salopek, the man said he worked for the French company CGG, a Geoscience company.

Based in Egypt’s restive Sinai peninsula, Sinai Province has been in battle with the army since the overthrow of President Mohamed Morsi two years ago.

Militants from the extremist group have carried out a number of beheadings in the past, releasing footage of the killings as part of its propaganda.

“This matter need to be achieved earlier than 48 hours from now. If not, the soldiers of Wilayet Sinai will kill me”.

Other recent attacks include the June 29 assassination of Egypt’s prosecutor general, Hisham Barakat, in a vehicle bombing in Cairo. Wilyat Sinai is a name for the militants’ Egyptian offshoot. The federal government had hoped that the occasion would present that Egypt is recovering from the turmoil that has battered its financial system because the 2011 rebellion that toppled former strongman Hosni Mubarak.

Completion of the new waterway within just one year is being touted as a landmark achievement, rivalling the digging of the original Suez Canal that opened in 1869 after nearly a decade of work.