ISIS claim they have beheaded a Croatian hostage they captured at the end of July this year, according to the SITE Intelligence Group which monitors jihadist organisations in the Middle East.
ISIS's affiliate group in Egypt, known as Sinai Province, captured 30-year-old Tomislav Salopek on July 22 as he travelled to work west of Cairo.
The group released a picture purporting to show Salopek's body lying in sand on the ground with his decapitated head placed on his back, according to SITE Intelligence. The picture is yet to be verified.
If confirmed, it is the group's first beheading of a Western hostage since their pledge of allegiance to ISIS in November 2014.
A video released by the group on ISIS-linked Twitter accounts last week showed Salopek, dressed in an orange jump-suit, kneeling on the floor in front of a militant holding a knife.
In the video, the father of two and employee of French geoscience company CGG, read a statement saying he would be killed within 48 hours "if Egypt's government fails to release Muslim women held in prisons." The 48-hour deadline passed on Friday.
Reacting to last week's video, Mr Salopek's father, Zlatko Salopek, pleaded with the group for his son's life. He told the AFP News Agency: "I am asking the people who hold my son to let him return to his family, because his motive to go to your homeland was exclusively to earn bread for his children. Nothing else."
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