Video shows killing of Egypt officer by Sinai extremists

CAIRO — A video emerged Monday showing the killing of an Egyptian police captain by extremists in the restive northern part of the Sinai Peninsula earlier this month.

The footage, which circulated on jihadi forums and social media, shows a group of masked men capturing the officer at gunpoint at a crossroads, binding his arms roughly as jihadi chants play in the background. The men are armed with automatic weapons and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

In a later scene, the officer speaks to the camera, holding back tears as he identifies himself. He shows his pistol to explain that he was armed when ambushed "by the Mujahedeen of the Province of Sinai", the name used by Islamist militants who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, which controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Repeating demands of the militants, he accused the state of imprisoning, torturing and raping female students and urged their release, saying "otherwise, all officers of the Interior Ministry will be targeted”.

The officer is then shown kneeling, eyes and arms bound, before a man carrying a Kalashnikov shoots him several times in the back of the head. The footage conforms to Associated Press reporting of the killing, which was already confirmed by Egyptian authorities.

The captain was snatched from a taxi by gunmen as he headed to work at the Rafah border crossing with the Gaza Strip, state prosecutors said earlier this month. They had imposed a media gag order on the case, a rare incident of militants seizing an officer in an area where the military is conducting an ongoing offensive against powerful local Islamic militias.

The officer was found shot dead near the village of El Muqatta, near the Gaza border following a military search for him in the area that led to clashes which officials said killed 10 militants.

North Sinai has seen a spike in militant attacks against security forces, particularly after the military ousted Islamist president Mohammed Morsi in 2013. The area has been under a dusk-to-dawn curfew since last October, which the government on Monday extended for another three months.