3 dead bodies found in Sinai border town

AL-ARISH, Egypt — The decapitated bodies of a father and his two sons recently kidnapped by Islamic militants were found on Saturday lying in the street in the northern Sinai town of Rafah, according to security officials and witnesses — the latest grotesque act of brutality in the country’s long-running insurgency.

They said the mother of the two siblings was killed last week by militants from the Islamic State group when they raided the family home in the village of Yamit, west of Rafah, and kidnapped the three men they suspect of being collaborators.

The three decapitated bodies found Saturday were taken to a hospital, where they were identified and prepared for burial, according to the officials and witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media and feared reprisals, respectively.

IS is spearheading an insurgency in northern Sinai, where there has recently been an uptick in the abduction and killing of suspected informants. The brutal killings are meant to serve as a deterrent to would-be collaborators.

Islamic militants have been fighting security forces in northern Sinai for years, but the insurgency has grown deadlier and expanded since the military’s 2013 ouster of an Islamist president — Mohammed Morsi of the nowoutlawed Muslim Brotherhood — whose one year in office proved divisive.

Lately, the militants have targeted Egypt’s minority Christians, forcing hundreds of them to flee their homes in northern Sinai.