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BEIRUT — The Islamic State group on Sunday released a video claiming the beheading of US aid worker Peter Kassig in a warning to Washington as it prepares to send more troops to Iraq.

The same video showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel, the latest in a series of mass executions and other atrocities carried out by IS in Syria and Iraq.

Washington said it was working to confirm the authenticity of the video, which sparked widespread condemnation.

"If confirmed, we are appalled by the brutal murder of an innocent American aid worker and we express our deepest condolences to his family and friends," National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Mehan said.

In the undated video, a man who appears to be the same British-accented jihadist who beheaded previous Western hostages stands above a severed head.

"This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen," the black-clad masked executioner says, urging US President Barack Obama to send more troops back to the region to confront IS.

"Here we are burying the first American crusader in Dabiq, eagerly waiting for the remainder of your armies to arrive," the militant says, referring to a northern Syrian town.

Kassig's family said they were awaiting official confirmation on the death of the former US soldier, who risked his life to provide medical treatment and aid to those suffering from Syria's civil war.

'Treasured son' 

"We are aware of the news reports being circulated about our treasured son and are waiting for confirmation from the government as to the authenticity of these reports," Ed and Paula Kassig said in a statement.

They urged the media not to publish or broadcast images released by IS, saying this was "playing into the hostage-takers' hands".

"We prefer our son is written about and remembered for his important work and the love he shared with friends and family, not in the manner the hostage-takers would use to manipulate Americans and further their cause."

Kassig would be the fifth Western hostage killed by IS in recent months, after two US reporters and two British aid workers were beheaded in videos released online.

Sunday’s video was substantially different from the previous IS recordings. Kassig was not shown alive in the footage, and no direct threats were made against other Western hostages.

British Prime Minister David Cameron said he was “horrified” by Kassig’s “cold-blooded murder” while French President Francois Hollande condemned it as a “crime against humanity”.

The 26-year-old, who converted to Islam and took the first name Abdul-Rahman, was taken captive last year and was threatened in an October 3 video showing the beheading of British aid worker Alan Henning.

The claim of Kassig’s killing came as Washington prepares to double its military personnel in Iraq to up to 3,100 as part of the international campaign it is leading against IS.

The Sunni Muslim extremist group has seized control of large parts of Iraq and Syria, declared a “caliphate” and imposed its brutal interpretation of Islamic law.

The video released on Sunday also showed a highly choreographed sequence of the beheadings of at least 18 prisoners said to be Syrian officers and pilots loyal to President Bashar Assad.

Jihadists are shown marching the prisoners past a wooden box of long military knives, each taking one as he passed, then forcing them to kneel in a line and decapitating them.

“Today, we’re slaughtering the soldiers of Bashar,” the same black-clad militant said in the video.

“Tomorrow, we’ll be slaughtering your [US] soldiers. And with Allah’s permission, we will break this final and last crusade, and the Islamic State will... begin to slaughter your people on your streets.”

Jihadists ‘don’t represent Islam’ 

Kassig’s parents had pleaded for his release, highlighting his humanitarian work and conversion to Islam.

Kassig founded an aid group through which he trained some 150 civilians to provide medical aid to people in Syria. His group also gave food, cooking supplies, clothing and medicine to the needy.

Burhan Mousa Agha, a Syrian friend who worked with Kassig in Lebanon, described him as a funny, dedicated and brave man who only wanted to help those who had suffered from the war.

“I want to apologise to his family. I don’t know what to tell his mother and father, I’m sorry that their son died in my country, trying to help,” Agha told AFP, denouncing IS for desecrating Islam.

“They are animals, less than animals, they don’t represent Islam. Peter wasn’t fighting anyone, he was teaching people how to save lives.”

Sunday’s video was released as IS suffered battleground losses in Iraq backed by US-led air strikes, with Iraqi forces on Saturday breaking the jihadists’ months long siege of the country’s largest oil refinery.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — An Israeli man was stabbed in the back in occupied East Jerusalem on Sunday in what Israeli forces said they believed was an attack by a Palestinian motivated by nationalism.

Israel's emergency services said the incident took place near Damascus Gate, the main entrance to the Old City from East Jerusalem, with the victim taken to hospital in a stable condition after being stabbed by a screwdriver.

Israeli forces said the 32-year-old had been stabbed by a "young Arab, who then fled", and that a search was under way for the assailant.

After he was stabbed the victim walked into the Old City, where he found border police and informed them of the incident, a statement said.

A spokeswoman for the Shaare Zedek hospital said he was in "light to moderate condition with a stab wound in his upper back”.

Violence has been raging in Jerusalem since July, with clashes between Palestinians and Israeli forces on a nearly daily basis and Palestinians pelting the city's light rail with stones.

Four Israelis were recently killed in two separate attacks in Jerusalem in which Palestinians deliberately rammed their cars into groups of pedestrians and police.

Last week, a soldier in Tel Aviv and a Jewish woman in the West Bank were stabbed to death by Palestinians.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Divisions within Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's governing coalition delayed on Sunday a preliminary vote on a proposed law to declare Israel the nation-state of the Jewish people.

Justice Minister Tzipi Livni, who heads a centrist party, has expressed concern that the rightist-backed legislation would put preservation of Israel's Jewish character above democratic values, and she blocked its discussion in a ministerial committee she chairs.

In now-frozen peace talks, Palestinians had rejected Netanyahu's demand that they recognise Israel as a Jewish state. Legislators from the country's Arab minority have described the bill as racist.

Netanyahu opened the weekly Cabinet meeting on Sunday by promising to "move forward on the nationality law" proposed by his right-wing Likud Party and far-right allies.

The Israeli leader said it was time for the country’s courts, which have been attacked by some ultranationalists as supportive of Palestinian land rights, “to recognise the aspect of our being the nation state of the Jewish people”.

With Likud’s support, the bill, which Netanyahu said would ensure equal rights for all Israeli citizens, had been expected to receive approval from Livni’s ministerial committee.

After Livni intervened, Netanyahu effectively side-stepped her, announcing he would move discussion of the legislation from her committee to the full Cabinet. No date was announced for the cabinet debate.

Underscoring splits in the coalition, Economy Minister Naftali Bennett said he would subsequently withhold his far-right Jewish Home Party’s support for bills proposed by centrist members.

ERBIL — Goran Mohammed had just completed his second year of university in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil when he dropped out to help his father run the family grocery store. When that still didn't earn the family enough money, the 19 year old was forced to take a second job as a taxi driver.

"I would prefer to stay in school or go fight [against the Islamic State [IS] with the peshmerga, but my family needs every penny," he said.

Mohammed's difficulties reflect that of his region, where the semi-autonomous Kurdish regional government has struggled to stabilise the local economy in the face of a militant onslaught and an expensive financial dispute with the Iraqi central government in Baghdad.

Negotiations between the two sides yielded some progress Thursday after Baghdad agreed to release $500 million in frozen budget payments. In return, the Kurds will provide 150,000 barrels of oil per day for Baghdad to sell. The dispute, which resulted in a freeze on payments of Kurdistan's share of the national budget, has had a significant impact on Kurds living in the north — many of whom have not received salaries in months.

But while the cash infusion may provide temporary relief, many here say it is nowhere near enough to stabilise the Kurdish economy amid IS insurgency, which has driven more than 1 million people to seek refuge in northern Iraq.

Hiva Mirkhan, a member of the Kurdish parliament and part of the Kurdish parliament's finance committee, said the $500 million will only cover about 71 per cent of the overdue government salaries. The other 29 per cent, she said, must still be fronted by the Kurdish government.

Baghdad moved to withhold the 17 per cent share of the national budget normally earmarked for the Kurdish region — an estimated $20 billion — after the Kurds independently shipped oil to Turkey in January without going through the Iraqi Oil Ministry. In May, the Kurdish government went a step further and sold the 1.05 million barrels — worth more than $100 million at the time — in Turkey.

Iraq's supreme court in June rejected a request from the central government, under then-prime minister Nouri Al Maliki, to outlaw direct oil exports from the Kurdistan region — a decision which some Kurdish officials interpreted as a licence for further independent sales. The US has supported the Iraqi government's restrictions on independent Kurdish oil sales but the State Department has yet to intervene in any sale.

The budget payment may have inspired some confidence in Iraq's new government, led by Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi, who has promised a quick resolution to the problem. However, Kurdish officials are looking for a more concrete show of good faith from Baghdad.

"It must be solved systematically," said Sharko Jawdat, a lawmaker with the Kurdish parliament and member of the oil committee. "There needs to be a legal solution to these problems."

In recent weeks, however, the battle against IS group has overshadowed the issue. Tens of thousands of men have left their homes and jobs for the front lines, further adding to the regional economic slowdown.

The Kurds have taken advantage of the chaos to push into disputed territory, including the oil-rich province of Kirkuk, reigniting a decades old dream of Kurdish independence. Meanwhile, northern Iraq faces an unprecedented burden of providing shelter to more than 1 million people who fled the fighting.

"It's putting tremendous pressure on the Kurdish government," said Ali Kurdistani, an independent political analyst in the Kurdish province of Sulaymaniyah. "When you have this many refugees... it affects jobs, since they are also looking for jobs. There aren't enough schools for students, there aren't enough places to live, and other things like healthcare and basic services aren't enough."

Mario Al Jebouri, who owns a real estate company in Erbil, said property prices have plummeted after being hit by the budget cut and IS' offensive.

"Some developers are selling their properties at a 50 per cent lower cost than they were eight months ago," he said. "The infrastructure projects need a cash injection, which is far greater than $500 million [but] the first priority is to have people receive their salaries."

Still, some are hopeful that Thursday's agreement will have a positive impact on business.

"We were obliged to decrease the prices because nobody was buying," said Yassin Ahmed, a salesman at the secondhand market in Erbil. "If the government pays the salaries people will buy more."

INDIANAPOLIS — Peter Kassig first experienced the Middle East as a soldier, then returned as a student and, finally, as a humanitarian intent on helping those whose lives were upended by the brutal civil war in Syria, whatever their allegiance.

It was while delivering relief supplies for an aid group he founded that he was captured in eastern Syria on October 1, 2013, almost a year to the day in which he appeared in the Islamic State (IS) group's video of the beheading of British hostage Alan Henning.

The militants vowed then that Kassig would be next, and they released a video early Sunday that appeared to show that the 26-year-old aid worker had been beheaded. The Associated Press could not immediately verify the video's authenticity, but it was released in the same manner as other IS videos.

Kassig's parents, Ed and Paula Kassig of Indianapolis, released a statement early Sunday through a family spokeswoman.

"We are aware of the news reports being circulated about our treasured son and are waiting for confirmation from the government as to the authenticity of these reports." They said they would have no additional comment and requested privacy.

The release of the October 3 video was heartbreaking for Kassig's family and friends, who had been silent for a year after his capture. Kassig converted to Islam and took the name Abdul-Rahman while in captivity, and his family spent the ensuing weeks pleading for his life and stressing his humanitarian work and conversion to Islam in rallies and interviews in Indiana and Lebanon. His mother also took to Twitter in hopes of contacting his captors directly.

His parents repeatedly said that they were unable to meet the demands made of them by Peter's captors, but they did not specify what those demands were.

Kassig served in the Mideast after enlisting in the army in 2004 and ultimately served in the 75th Ranger Regiment, a special operations unit, according to his military record. He served in Iraq from April until July 2007, and was medically discharged as a private first class that September.

Kassig's desire to perform aid work in the region was kindled during a spring break trip to Beirut while he was studying political science at Butler University. He left school and returned to Lebanon in 2012, where he worked as a medical assistant and humanitarian worker and treated people from all sides of the conflict in neighbouring Syria.

Kassig founded a relief organisation, Special Emergency Response and Assistance, or SERA, around the belief that "there was a lot of room for improvement in terms of how humanitarian organisations interact with and cooperate with the populations that they serve”.

In a January 2013 interview with Time magazine, Kassig said he travelled heavily throughout Lebanon to assess the needs of people there. SERA, he said, focused on supplementing the work of larger organisations by delivering aid that could "do the most good for the most people over the longest period of time possible".

"It's about showing people that we care, that someone is looking out for those who might be overlooked or who have slipped through the cracks in the system for whatever reason," he said.

Kassig's friends and family say he understood the risks involved of working in the region, but that he felt called to help.

Burhan Agha, a 26-year-old Syrian, used to work with Kassig in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli, delivering aid to Syrian refugees before Kassig moved his operations to southern Turkey. Speaking by phone from Switzerland, where he is seeking asylum, Agha described his friend's killing as senseless.

"If I could apologise to each American, one by one, I would," Agha said while weeping. "Because Peter died in Syria, while he was helping the Syrian people. And those who killed him claimed to have done it in the name of Islam. I am a Muslim, and from Syria, and he is considered a part of the Syrian revolution."

Joe Dages, a friend from Louisville, Kentucky, recently told the AP that it was clear how passionate Kassig was about his work when he last saw him in March 2013.

"He felt a need to stay up all day and all night and continue to help because people were dying all the time," Dages said. "He thought that maybe if I can just pour a little more of myself into this we can save a few more lives."

The Syrian war has killed at least 200,000 people according to activists. It has also been an extremely deadly place for aid workers and reporters.

SERA suspended its efforts while Kassig's family worked to secure his release.

VIENNA — Negotiators from Iran and six world powers come together in Vienna this week for a final round of talks on securing a deal over Tehran's nuclear programme by a November 24 deadline.

The five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany (the P5+1) want Iran to scale down its nuclear activities in order to make any dash to make a bomb extremely difficult.

In return Tehran, which denies seeking to develop nuclear weapons, wants the lifting of UN and Western sanctions that are causing its economy major problems.

In July after months of intense talks, negotiators gave themselves four more months, until November 24, to strike a deal. Now there is speculation about a fresh extension.

Here is a look at the main issues:

Enrichment

The thorniest problem is enrichment, the spinning of uranium gas at supersonic speeds in centrifuge machines to make it suitable for power generation and medical uses but also, at high purities, for a bomb.

Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in July that Iran wants to ramp up its enrichment capacities to industrial levels. But the powers want Iran to slash them. Both sides have called for more "realism" on this point.

Progress

Progress has been made in other areas. These include greater oversight for UN inspectors and a different use for Fordo, Iran's second main enrichment site under a mountain near Qom to protect it from air attack.

Another is Iran's apparent willingness to change the design of a new reactor it is building at Arak in order to ensure that it produces much less plutonium, the alternative to highly enriched uranium for a bomb.

Timing

Apart from enrichment there are other tricky aspects, not least the duration of the mooted accord. Washington wants Iran's nuclear activities limited for a "double-digit" number of years, Tehran considerably less.

Another is the pace at which sanctions would be lifted and how to tie the relief to certain "milestones" reached by Iran. The lifting of sanctions by the UN Security Council and a sceptical US Congress controlled by the Republicans also presents legal difficulties.

Skeletons in the closet

Another potential stumbling block is the UN atomic watchdog's probe into the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's programme — alleged work on developing a nuclear weapon before 2003 and possibly since.

After years during which Tehran rejected these allegations out of hand, progress at last began to be made this year but Iran has still not provided information on two out of around 12 areas of suspicion to the International Atomic Energy Agency, almost three months after an August 25 deadline.

High stakes

Reaching a deal could improve Iran's antagonistic relations with the West, paving the way for cooperation in other areas such as fighting militants in Syria and Iraq from the Islamic State group.

It would also silence what US President Barack Obama in 2012 called the "drums of war". Neither Washington nor Israel, widely assumed to have nuclear weapons itself, have ruled out bombing Iran.

In addition it would be an important milestone in global efforts to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and represent a significant foreign policy success for Obama.

Another extension? 

Because of the difficulties the two sides are experiencing in seeing eye to eye, experts have begun to speculate about yet another extension.

This could include locking in measures to do with Fordo, for example, or Arak, in a so-called "Interim Plus" agreement.

"There is virtually no possibility that a complete deal will be concluded by November 24," Robert Einhorn, former special advisor on arms control at the US State Department, told AFP.

"I think they'll agree to extend the interim arrangements for several more months."

WASHINGTON — Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed support Sunday for the US fight against Islamic State (IS) militants, but cautioned against any softening toward Iran.

"We want them both to lose. The last thing we want is to have any one of them get weapons of mass destruction," Netanyahu said in an interview with CBS Face the Nation.

His comments came shortly after IS claimed the beheading of another Western hostage, US aid worker Peter Kassig, along with that of 18 men described as Syrian soldiers.

In an undated video, a masked black-clad jihadist seen standing above a severed head says: "This is Peter Edward Kassig, a US citizen of your country."

Netanyahu expressed support for US President Barack Obama's leadership of a coalition against IS and said "we're with all the American people who understand the savagery that we're all up against".

IS "has to be defeated and it can be defeated", he said.

But Netanyahu portrayed the situation as a "global conflict" against militant Islam, not just Sunni-based IS and Al Qaeda but also Shiite Iran-backed Hizbollah.

"We want them both to lose," he said, insisting: "Iran is not your ally. Iran is not your friend. Iran is your enemy."

The United States and other Western powers have been negotiating with Iran to limit its nuclear programme, with a November 24 deadline for a deal fast approaching.

Netanyahu reiterated Israel's opposition to any agreement that leaves Iran with a residual capacity to enrich uranium, and urged tougher sanctions on Tehran as an alternative to a deal.

"The alternative to a bad deal is not war. The alternative to a bad deal are more sanctions, tougher sanctions, that will make Iran dismantle its capacity to make nuclear bombs," he said.

VIENNA — Iran and six world powers begin a final round of talks in Vienna on Tuesday aiming to overcome significant remaining differences and agree a historic nuclear deal by a November 24 deadline.

"There's still a big gap. We may not be able to get there," US President Barack Obama warned last Sunday.

After 12 years of rising tensions, threats of war and failed diplomacy this accord would silence for good fears of Tehran developing nuclear weapons — an ambition it has always denied.

Success could put Iran and the West on the road to improved relations after 35 years in the deep freeze. Failure could mean renewed Iranian nuclear expansion and even military action.

But US and Iranian negotiators are under severe domestic pressure not to give too much away, not least in Washington after Republicans snatched the Senate majority earlier this month.

It was on November 24 last year, after moderate Hassan Rouhani became president, that Iran and the P5+1 — UN Security Council permanent members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany — secured an interim atomic agreement.

They missed, however, a July 20 deadline to reach a comprehensive accord, agreeing to give themselves four more months, until November 24.

US Secretary of State John Kerry said at the time that the talks were "the best chance we've ever had to resolve this issue peacefully".

And now, says chief US negotiator Wendy Sherman, it is "time to finish the job".

Failure would be a "dangerous scenario for the entire world", her Iranian opposite number Abbas Araqchi said.

Unity despite Ukraine 

Despite tensions between Russia and the West over the Ukraine crisis the six powers have been united over Iran. Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday made a joint call for a deal.

The powers want Iran to scale back its nuclear programme in order to make any rush to build a nuclear bomb virtually impossible. In return, Iran wants painful sanctions lifted.

Some areas appear provisionally sewn up, like altering a reactor being built at Arak, a different use for the Fordo facility — under a mountain to protect it from air attack — and more inspections.

But the big problem remains enrichment, which renders uranium suitable for power generation and nuclear medicines — but also, at high purities, for a weapon.

Iran wants to ramp up massively the number of enrichment centrifuges in order, it says, to make reactor fuel. The West wants them slashed, saying Iran has no such need at present.

"There will be no backward steps" in the nuclear programme, Araqchi said last month.

There may, however, be some wiggle room if Iran neutralises or exports — perhaps to Russia — some or all of its uranium stockpiles.

Other thorny issues are the duration of the accord and the pace at which the tangled web of sanctions is undone, an area where Iranian expectations are "excessive", one Western diplomat said Friday.

"They want everything, all at once and this is not realistic," the diplomat involved in the talks said.

11th hour breakthrough? 

Observers say the talks were always going to go down to the wire.

"If there is to be a deal, the gaps won't be bridged until the 11th hour. Doing so ahead of time would be seen as not having fought enough," Mark Fitzpatrick at the International Institute for Strategic Studies told AFP.

Not that this means they will succeed, however.

"There is virtually no possibility that a complete deal will be concluded by November 24," Robert Einhorn at the Brookings Institute told AFP. "I think they'll agree to extend the interim arrangements for several more months."

For now though, officials on all sides insist that another extension is not on the cards. Russia's negotiator Sergey Ryabkov has said no one was working on a "plan B".

"A deal is within reach by November 24 and both sides are committed to getting the job done," Arms Control Association analyst Kelsey Davenport told AFP.

BEIRUT — Lebanon, a nation fiercely proud of its cuisine, has been left with a case of severe indigestion after a scandal over restaurants and supermarkets selling tainted food.

Health Minister Wael Abu Faour has won plaudits but also faced harsh criticism for publicly naming and shaming establishments that failed food safety tests.

His recent graphic press conferences have horrified a country where it is not unusual to eat out three times a day.

"The Lebanese don't know what they're eating, and it would only be worse if they knew," Abu Faour said at a press conference this week.

"The Lebanese are eating food dipped in sweat and covered with diseases and microbes," he added.

At one unnamed establishment "some of the samples tested showed they contained the remains of human faeces! This cannot be tolerated whatever the cost is”.

Over the course of several days, Abu Faour listed some of the country's best-regarded institutions.

Hallab, a famed dessert shop in the northern port city of Tripoli, was cited for spoiled cream, while branches of two popular Lebanese fast-food chains — Kababji and Roadster Diner — were slammed for bad meat products.

Branches of well-known supermarket chains TSC and Spinneys have faced the same criticism as street corner shawarma joints that do a roaring lunch trade.

The campaign has divided Lebanese, with some describing Abu Faour as a rare example of good governance and others accusing him of a smear campaign that could destroy businesses.

On Twitter, backers showed their support with an Arabic hashtag reading "minister of all of Lebanon”.

Roadster Diner thanked Abu Faour for being a "valued customer" and insisted it took "extreme measures" to ensure it met safety standards.

But others accused him of grandstanding, ignoring protocols by failing to privately caution offenders, or even worse.

Economy Minister Alain Hakim reportedly accused Abu Faour of "terrorism against restaurants".

"It is like shooting ourselves in the head, not even in the foot," local media quoted him as saying.

Others took to social media to object to the campaign, including Lebanese pop idol Elissa, who posted a photo of a Roadster burger on her Instagram page with the caption "most delicious chicken burger ever”.

Lebanon's media pulled no punches covering the story, with the daily Al Akhbar headlining its front page "The Lebanese are eating sh**."

The Daily Star ran a picture of ministers insisting Abu Faour personally sign the wrappers of their sandwiches to certify them fit for consumption.

Despite the furore, Abu Faour has insisted the campaign will continue.

"The biggest disaster is in the chicken farms," he said on Friday. "I believe we will be closing down a number of them."

CAIRO — Egypt's most dangerous militant group on Friday posted its first video message since pledging allegiance to Islamic State, with footage purporting to show that the group was behind one of the most deadly attacks on Egyptian security forces in years.

The nearly 30-minute video, whose authenticity could not immediately be verified, was posted on the Twitter feed claiming to represent Sinai-based Ansar Bayt Al Maqdis.

The group last week pledged loyalty to the Al Qaeda offshoot now facing US air strikes in Syria and Iraq. It later changed its name to Sinai Province on the Twitter feed, suggesting loyalty to the self-declared Muslim caliphate.

The footage was edited in a slick fashion that resembled videos purportedly released by Islamic State, the ultra-hardline Sunni militants that control swathes of Iraq and Syria.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has expressed concern that an Islamist insurgency in the Sinai could destabilise the Arab world's most populous nation and threaten its neighbours. Militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and police since the army ousted Morsi last year after mass protests against him.

Since last month's attacks, Egypt has stepped up airstrikes and created a security buffer zone at its border with the Gaza Strip.

The video shows a man threatening supporters of Sisi. Text at the bottom of the video describes him as the suicide bomber who attacked the Karam Al Kawadis military site.

The man says the fighters "will be the swords that cut your heads”. The message appears directed at Egypt's armed forces after a video posted on YouTube last month appeared to show militants beheading three Egyptians accused of being informants for Israeli intelligence.

The man says the group will not let Sisi get away with attacks on Muslims, saying the former army general "has exceeded all limits".

The video cuts to footage of a large explosion in the desert. Gunmen are shown entering an area littered with dead men, some in military fatigues. Another image shows fighters climbing atop a tank and raising the black flag of the Islamic State.

A suicide bombing and a subsequent gun attack at Karam Al Kawadis in northern Sinai on October 24 killed more than 30 security personnel and prompted the government to declare a three-month state of emergency in the area.

At the end of the video, a man in a black robe sits next to a haul of heavy weapons and ammunition that he identifies as spoils of war stolen from the armed forces. He says the war against the state has just begun.