Sinai terrorists say video depicts beheading of Israel collaborators

Egypt's most violent Islamist group released a video on Sunday showing militants beheading three Egyptians whom they accused of being informants for Israeli intelligence.

In a video posted on YouTube, the Sinai-based Salafist terrorist organization Ansar Beit al-Maqdis accused the Egyptian government of collaborating with the Israelis to attack their fighters in Sinai and vowed to hunt down the local informants they rely on.

"These are your sons, continuing to harvest the spies of the Jews," a spokesman for the group says in the video.

"The infidel soldiers of the Egyptian army will pay for their betrayal, for collaborating with the Jewish Zionists, instead of defending Islam and the homeland."

The gruesome footage shows the three men confessing before being decapitated by masked men. The heads are then placed on the backs of the prone bodies.

A fourth man, shown confessing to being an informant for the Egyptian military, is then mown down by bullets.

The filmed killings are reminiscent of images posted on the Internet by the Islamic State group, the al-Qaida offshoot which has seized large parts of Iraq and Syria. The footage also included images of the terrorist group destroying the houses of suspected collaborators in the Sinai and a clip from a recent speech by Islamic State's spokesman, suggesting that Egyptian militants are increasingly inspired by the group, which is now notorious for summary executions and beheadings.

The Islamic State group has attracted a following of Egyptian Islamists on social media sites. Egyptian security sources estimate that up to 8,000 Egyptians are fighting abroad with militant groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaida.

An Ansar commander told Reuters last month that Islamic State had been advising it on how to operate more effectively.

At home, Ansar Beit al-Maqdis has become a major security problem for the government, killing scores of police and soldiers in the increasingly lawless Sinai Peninsula, which is bounded by Israel, the Gaza Strip and the Suez Canal, one of the world's most important shipping routes.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis said in August that it had beheaded four Egyptians for providing Israel with intelligence for an airstrike that killed three of its fighters. It posted footage of the killings on Twitter.

Last month, Sinai residents said they had found a beheaded corpse bearing a note signed by the group, accusing the victim of being an Israeli spy.

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