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A video circulated on social media website on Wednesday, purportedly released by Sinai State militant group in Egypt, threatened that the group will kill the kidnapped Croatian citizen if the Egyptian government does not release jailed Muslim women within 48 hours.
Starting with a banner reading "A Message to the Egyptian Government," the video showed the abducted Croatian on his knees in a desert spot and a masked militant near him with a dagger in his left hand and the black flag of Sinai State, an affiliate with the Islamic State (IS) militant group, in the background.
"They want to substitute me with the Muslim women arrested in Egyptian prisons. This matter has to be achieved before 48 hours from now or the soldiers of Sinai State will kill me," the abducted Croatian read from a paper in the video.
Being the only speaker in the video, the man identified himself as Tomislav Salopek, a 30-year-old engineer from Croatia who works for a Cairo branch of French CGG corporation.
Sinai State was previously called Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis group, but has changed its name into "Sinai State" and declared loyalty to the IS.
The Sinai-based group claimed responsibility for most of the anti-government terror attacks in Egypt over the past couple of years.
Earlier in February, IS released a video showing the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts in neighboring turmoil-stricken Libya, to which Egypt instantly replied with military airstrikes that targeted IS elements in Libya and killed some of their militants. Enditem
