The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group has claimed it killed one Norwegian and one Chinese captive, and that it downed the Russian airliner over Egypt with explosives hidden in a soda can.
China’s foreign ministry said on Thursday it would “bring to justice” those responsible for executing the Chinese national, confirming the man’s identity as Fan Jinghui for the first time.
ISIL had two months ago demanded a ransom for the release of the men.
The announcements came in the latest issue of the group’s English-language magazine Dabiq on Wednesday, which contained a page that appeared to show the bodies of the two captives.
A caption on the image said: “Executed after being abandoned by kafir nations and organisations.”
”Kafir” is the Arabic word for infidel.
The Norwegian man was identified as Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad, 48, from Oslo. Fan Jinghui, 50, was a freelance consultant from Beijing.
The group did not say when or where the two were captured.
‘Despicable act’
Norway said it feared that Grimsgaard-Ofstad was killed by ISIL in what Prime Minister Erna Solberg said was “a despicable, brutal act”.
“We still have to check if the published image is authentic, our experts are doing that now, but so far there is no reason to doubt that it is not authentic,” Solberg said at a televised press conference in Oslo.
In the same magazine, ISIL also published a photo of what it said was the bomb that brought down the Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board.
In the issue – titled “Just Terror” – and circulated on social media, the group showed a Schweppes Gold soda can it said contained explosives.
Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday that Russian security services would do their utmost to establish and catch the culprits of the attack on the Russian passenger plane.
“It is acknowledged that it is a terrorist act and I want to recall that the president [Vladimir Putin] gave an instruction to all Russian law enforcement agencies without any statute of limitations to find those who were behind the preparations of staging this terrorist attack,” he said.
West was first target
ISIL, which controls large areas of Iraq and Syria and has a powerful affiliate in the Sinai region, said it targeted the plane because of Moscow’s air strikes against it in Syria.
It said it had originally wanted to bring down a Western plane belonging to a member of the US-led coalition but changed its plan when the Russian air campaign began.
“The divided Crusaders of the East and West thought themselves safe in their jets as they cowardly bombarded the Muslims of the Caliphate,” the Dabiq magazine said in reference to Russia and the West.
“And so revenge was exacted upon those who felt safe in the cockpits,” it added.
“This was to show the Russians and whoever allies with them that they will have no safety in the lands and airspace of the Muslims,” ISIL said in the magazine, calling the passengers “crusaders”.(Al Jazeera)
Link: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/11/isil-claims-norwegian-chinese-captives-killed-151118151736976.html
20
