ISIS-Linked Organization Strikes in Sinai

A terror group affiliated with Islamic State has executed three Egyptians in the country’s Sinai Desert, releasing a video late Sunday night depicting the heinous act. One of the victims seen being shot was a Christian citizen named Nabil Salama, who belonged to Egypt’s minority Coptic Church. Approximately 15% of the nation’s 100 million people are Coptic Christians. “This is the price you pay for supporting the Egyptian army,” an ISIS-linked soldier in the video says. The two other murdered individuals were local tribesmen accused of assisting Cairo’s military in its fight to root out the terror group. In response, Egypt’s Interior Ministry on Monday said it killed three terrorists suspected of involvement in the execution during “an intense firefight” in the Sinai Peninsula. The large and mostly barren desert east of mainland Egypt has suffered from prolonged unrest and violence, with local terrorist organizations launching repeated attacks against civilian and government targets. For the past three years, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi has conducted a large campaign to extinguish any “terror elements” in Sinai, leading to global criticism over alleged human rights abuses.