Clashes in Iraq’s Anbar kill at least 17 government troops

Egypt’s affiliate of the Islamic State group threatened yesterday to execute a Croatian kidnapped in Cairo last month within 48 hours if Muslim women jailed in Egypt are not freed.

Reading calmly from a note in English, the man identifies himself as Tomislav Salopek, a married, 30-year-old father of two, adding that Islamic State fighters captured him on July 22.

Croatia’s foreign ministry confirmed on 24 July that a Croatian citizen was abducted while travelling to work in Cairo, without providing further details.

Armed men stopped the vehicle and made the driver leave the vehicle.

Croatian interior minister Ranko Ostojic said on Wednesday that the ministry is in contact with agencies from allied states, while “the security has been raised to a highest level”. “If not, the troopers of Wilayat Sinai will kill me”, he provides, utilizing the group’s Arabic identify. The Sinai Peninsula, flanking the canal, is the centre of Islamist insurgency that began after the army toppled Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Mursi in 2013 amid mass protests against his rule. He had said that a police investigation was underway.

Foreign interests also have been targeted increasingly, including the Italian Consulate, which was hit with a vehicle bomb last month.

Different current assaults embrace the June 29 assassination of Egypt’s prosecutor basic, Hisham Barakat, in a automotive bombing in Cairo.

The timing of the video came as Egypt prepared to inaugurate the New Suez Canal, a megaproject that is the centerpiece of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi’s plans to revitalize the country’s economy. In Syria, Islamic State militants have killed foreign journalists and aid workers, starting with American journalist James Foley in August a year ago. Government forces have been carrying out an intensified hunt for the militants in several northern towns in the peninsula. Now they call themselves “an official province” of IS in Egypt.

The video, which was circulated widely on social media by Islamic State sympathizers Wednesday, would be the first known posting featuring a Western hostage held by Sinai Province, which changed its name from Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis after it pledged allegiance to the Islamic State jihadist movement late past year. Nine other troops were wounded, they said.