Video of a terrorist group in Egypt with links to the Islamic State executing a Coptic Christian and two tribes is circulating online, as the country’s Interior Ministry revealed on Monday that it had killed three suspects in the assassins.
The 13-minute video, released Saturday afternoon, showed 62-year-old Nabil Habashi Salama being shot in the back of the head with an AK-47 in the middle of what appeared to be the Egyptian desert.
Three blunt-armed militants stood behind Habashi Salama, who had helped build the only Coptic church in the area while he was assassinated.
Shortly afterwards, the same three militants took out two tribes whom they accused of fighting with the Egyptian armed forces.
The Coptic Orthodox Church represents between 10 and 15 percent of Egypt’s 100 million people.
Christians, along with Egyptian security forces, have been the main targets of ISIS attacks.
“As for your Christians in Egypt, this is the price you are paying to support the Egyptian army,” one militant said in the video, after Habashi Salama said his church had cooperated with the forces of the order to fight terrorism.
In a statement issued on Sunday, a church spokesman confirmed the murder of Habashi Salama and praised him for not abandoning his faith.
“He maintained the faith until the time he was assassinated,” the church said, adding that he wanted to affirm “his firm support for the efforts of the Egyptian state in stifling heinous acts of terrorism.”
Egyptian police said they killed some of the suspects in the video while exchanging gunfire with a group of six Islamic State-affiliated militants in the Abtal area of northern Sinai province.
Three of the men were not killed and are still wanted by Egypt.
There were no casualties among the security forces.
With publishing cables