The video of an Islamic terrorist group with links to the Islamic State executing a Coptic Christian and two tribes makes the rounds online – while the country’s Interior Ministry revealed on Monday that it killed three suspects in the killings.
The 13-minute video, released late Saturday, 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 militants armed with blurred faces stood behind Habashi Salama, who had helped build the only Coptic church in the area while he was killed.
Shortly afterwards, the same three militants brought out two tribesmen, whom they accused of fighting 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 the Christians in Egypt, this is the price you pay for supporting the Egyptian army,” one of the militants said in the video, after Habashi Salama said his church cooperated with law enforcement to fight terrorism. .
In a statement released Sunday, a church spokesman confirmed Habashi Salama’s murder and praised him for not giving up his faith.
“He kept the faith until he was killed,” the church said, adding that it wanted to say it “strongly supports the Egyptian state’s efforts to remove hate 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 North Sinai province.
Three of the men have not been killed and are still wanted by Egypt.
There were no casualties among the security forces.
With Post threads