ISIS News Today: Jihadist Terror Group Shoots Father Dead, Burns Son Alive
Days after an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) declared that Christians are their favorite prey, two members of a Christian family were mercilessly murdered on Wednesday in Egypt's North Sinai, a hotbed of the terror group's Wilayat Sinai branch.
The victims, a father and his son, were Coptic Christians. Their bodies were found at sunrise in the provincial capital of El-Arish, Daily Mail reported. Police and medics say the man who was in his 60s sustained multiple gunshot wounds including in the head while his son was apparently burned alive.
Radicals have targeted Christians in Egypt for supporting Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi who was catapulted into power after Muslim President Mohamed Mursi's downfall on 2013. Sissi carried out a crackdown on extremists that resulted in the killing of hundreds of Islamists and the incarceration of thousands more.
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The militants retaliated by launching attacks on police and government officials with increased frequency. Wilayat Sinai has owned up to dozens of suicide bombings targeting army forces primarily in the Sinai Peninsula. Its deadliest attack was the suicide bombing of St. Mark's Cathedral in central Cairo which killed 29 people, mostly women and children.
On Sunday, Wilayat Sinai released a YouTube video encouraging jihadists to persecute and slaughter Christians that make up 10 percent of Egypt's population. The 20-minute video also indicated that Wilayat Sinai or the state of Sinai is expanding its terror operations to the rest of the country.
El-Sissi has repeatedly vowed to protect Christians from terror attacks but human rights organization for religious freedom International Christian Concern (ICC) laments that little has been done. "Entire Christian communities have been assaulted by mobs of Muslim radicals on four separate occasions in 2016 because there was a rumor that a church was being constructed," ICC Regional Manager William Start told the Christian Post.
