Egypt bombs ISIS Libya targets after video shows 21 Copts beheaded

Cairo announced early Monday that Islamic State targets had been bombed in Libya hours after a video was released showing the mass beheadings of 21 Egyptian Christians.

President Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi went on national television Sunday night to warn that Cairo would choose the necessary means and timing to avenge the criminal killings of 21 Egyptian Christians, shortly after the Islamic State released a video showing them being beheaded by Libyan jihadis linked to the Islamic State. He declared seven days of national mourning. The men, Egyptian Coptic workers, were seized in December and January from the coastal town of Sirte which has fallen under the control of Islamic groups. 

Sunni Islam’s top body, Al-Azhar, condemned the “barbaric” beheading of the Copts. “Al-Azhar received the news of the execution of a group of innocent Egyptians with great sorrow and grief,” Al-Azhar said in a statement.“Al-Azhar stresses that such barbaric action has nothing to do with any religion or human values.”

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