IS Egypt, formerly called Ansar Bait al-Maqdis, admitted in a video on YouTube that the military strikes against them in Sinai were successful, and asked the people of Sinai to protect them and help them lift the security siege there.
The group claimed responsibility for the killing of a police colonel, a sergeant and a conscript in a car in Sinai.
In the the video, which was posted on Friday, appeared Abu Osama al-Masry, the mufti and the spokesman of the group, next to five bodies of members of the group that he said were residents of Sinai killed by the army.
He said the people of Sinai should fight the army or face the group. “The army does not want to apply the sharia,” he said. “The army is our enemy because it besieged the land and forced the residents out.”
“The Islamic Caliphate has been declared in Sinai,” he said. “We will protect you as long as you do not cooperate with the army, but we will come after you if you do.”
The vowed to “cripple” the whole of Egypt to avenge the group members who were killed, and showed a video of the killing of the three policemen in the car.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
