Ethiopian captives slain in video
Militants shoot, behead groups held in Libya
CAIRO — Islamic State militants in Libya shot and beheaded groups of captive Ethiopian Christians, a video purportedly from the extremists showed Sunday. The attack widens the circle of nations affected by the group’s atrocities while showing its growth beyond a self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq.
The release of the 29minute video comes a day after Afghanistan’s president blamed the extremists for a suicide attack in his country that killed at least 35 people — and underscores the chaos gripping Libya after its 2011 civil war and the killing of dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
It also mirrored a film released in February showing militants beheading 21 captured Egyptian Christians on a Libyan beach, which immediately drew Egyptian airstrikes on the group’s suspected positions in Libya. Whether Ethiopia would — or could — respond with similar military force remains unclear.
Ethiopia long has drawn the anger of Islamic extremists over its military’s attacks on neighboring Somalia, whose population is almost entirely Muslim.
While the militant in the video at one point said “Muslim blood that was shed under the hands of your religion is not cheap,” it did not specifically men- tion the Ethiopian government’s actions.
The video, released via militant social media accounts and websites, could not be independently verified. However, it corresponded to other videos released by the Islamic State group and bore the symbol of its al-Furqan media arm.
The video starts with what it called a history of Christian-Muslim relations, followed by scenes of militants destroying churches, graves and icons. A masked fighter brandishing a pistol delivers a long statement, saying Christians must convert to Islam or pay a special tax prescribed by the Quran.
It shows one group of captives, identified as Ethiopian Christians, purport- edly held by an Islamic State affiliate in eastern Libya known as Barqa Province. It also shows another group purportedly held by an affiliate in southern Libya calling itself the Fazzan Province. The video then switches between footage of the captives in the south being shot dead and the captives in the east being beheaded on a beach. It was not possible to estimate how many captives were killed or confirm their identities.
In Ethiopia, government spokesman Redwan Hussein said officials were in contact with its embassy in Cairo to verify the video’s authenticity. Hussein said he believed those killed likely were Ethiopian migrants hoping to reach Europe. Libya has become a hub for migrants across Africa hoping to cross the Mediterranean to enter Europe for work and better lives.
“If this is confirmed, it will be a warning to people who wish to risk and travel to Europe though the dangerous route,” Hussein said.
Ethiopia’s options to retaliate remain slim, given its distance from Libya. However, Egyptian Ambassador to Ethiopia Mohammed Edrees said his country could partner with Addis Ababa to strike the militants.
“That could be an option,” Edrees said. “We will see and explore what is possible to deal with (the) group.”
Edrees said Ethiopian officials haven’t yet approached Egypt to discuss the idea.
Islamic State, which grew out of al-Qaida’s former Iraqi affiliate, now holds about a third of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate. It’s called on Muslims across the world to join it. Its online videos and propaganda, i ncluding scenes of its mass killings and beheadings, have caught the attention of many extremists
Its influence has grown since it seized large areas of Iraq last summer.
Insurgents in Egypt’s strategic Sinai Peninsula also have pledged to the group, while another purported affiliate in Yemen claimed a series of suicide bombings in March that killed at least 137 people.
On Saturday, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani blamed an affiliate in his country for an attack on a bank branch in the country’s east that killed 35 people and wounded 125. An affiliate also operates in Pakistan.
However, it remains unclear what kind of central command- and- control structure Islamic State operates.
“The Islamic State in Libya is still focused on this consolidation phase of announcing its presence through these very highprofile executions,” said Frederic Wehrey, a senior associate for the Middle East Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “But they face some structural limits in terms of how much local support they can get because they haven’t captured real revenue streams.”
Meanwhile Sunday, the U.S.-led coalition said Kurdish forces recaptured 11 villages in Iraq’s Kirkuk province from Islamic State following days of intense clashes. The coalition said the area of about 25 square miles was south of the city of Kirkuk.
The coalition also said Sunday that Iraqi forces had control over the country’s Bayji oil refinery, the nation’s largest. Islamic State fighters had been targeting it for days in attacks and briefly held a small portion of the complex.
In Anbar province, the extremists recently captured three villages near the city of Ramadi and remain locked in heavy clashes with Iraqi troops. More than 90,000 people have fled the militant’s advance there, a United Nations humanitarian agency said.