The mass beheading of 21 Egyptians in Libya shows the spread of the Islamic State franchise

CAIRO, Egypt — The gruesome video, released over the weekend, showed 21 men wearing orange jumpsuits being led onto a beach in procession by their captors. “We will conquer Rome, by Allah’s permission,” says one of the militants, after the men are all simultaneously beheaded.

The men were all Egyptians, members of the country’s Coptic Christian community that had gone to Libya in search of work. They were captured by the Islamic State in Sirte last month.

The reaction of the Egyptian government was as swift as it was fierce. At dawn on Monday, the country’s air force led airstrikes over targets in Libya. Libyan state television later reported that 40 to 50 militants were killed.

The bombings came less than two weeks after the terror group’s gruesome killing of Jordanian pilot Moaz el-Kasasbeh prompted a similar reaction from Jordan.

The Islamic State was born out of Al Qaeda in Iraq during the US occupation and has grown rapidly in the chaos of Syria's civil war, but jihadist groups from further afield are increasingly declaring allegiance to the group, seeing themselves as part of a wider struggle.

The Islamic State’s Libyan branch was announced in November last year as the country spiraled deeper into chaos. While some militants declared loyalty to IS as early as June, they only became a force late in 2014 when they consolidated power and resources in the extremist stronghold of Derna.

The Islamic State’s growing presence in Libya represents the latest effort by the group to expand their influence across the region, following the appearance of similar franchises elsewhere. But questions remain over the group's strategy, and the relationship between these new "provinces" of the Islamic State in terms of practical support and coordination.

‘Only a sea between us and Europe’

The beheadings are an attempt to show that despite the US-led coalition’s advances in Iraq, far from retreating as some Western commentators have suggested, they are in fact gaining ground and expanding in the region.

Libya is a strategic location, on the northern tip of Africa. The staging of the killings on the beach — much closer to Europe and the West than Syria and Iraq are — and the footage of the blood in the sea were symbolic, according to Hassan Hassan, Abu Dhabi-based analyst and co-author of “ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror."

“It says there’s only the sea between us and Christian Europe,” he said.

But what does it mean to be an IS franchise? One of the draws is surely symbolic — by claiming the title, local jihadi groups connect themselves to something larger.

Beyond that, it varies. Libya offers fertile ground for jihadist activity — trained fighters who cut their teeth during the uprisings against longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi, huge stockpiles of weapons to which militias have liberally helped themselves since 2011 and political chaos that allows would-be terrorists to train and operate undisturbed. 

Geopolitically, expansion in Libya gives the group a foothold in Africa — where until now its rival Al Qaeda has been dominant — only a stone’s throw away from continental Europe.

In Derna, now an IS stronghold, the new franchise has shown all the signs of emulating its parent organization in Raqqa: levying taxes and raising money through extortion, and setting up its own courts and police that enforce a draconian interpretation of Sharia law.

It is unclear how much communication the different franchises have, but the most overt sign of cooperation this weekend was that video of the Egyptian beheadings was produced by the same outfit behind IS videos from Iraq and Syria: the Al-Hayat Media Center.

‘These men belong to God’

So what implications will this latest gruesome crime have in Libya and beyond?

Footage from the beheading video — not the beheading itself, but of masked men wielding bloody knives — is playing continuously on Egyptian television channels.

Ever since former general and now President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi toppled Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in a popularly-backed coup, and led a crackdown on Morsi’s supporters, he has been seen as an anti-Islamist figure.

It is likely that IS was betting on a military response from Sisi’s government, according to Hassan.

“When Sisi, who is a point of polarization among certain Islamists, when he is the one joining the fighting along with America and the West in general, that plays into their hands. That will get certain Islamists and jihadis to gravitate towards ISIS,” said Hassan, using another acronym for IS, which is also known as ISIL.

It is unclear whether Egypt will continue its attacks on IS. Libya currently has two governments competing for control and slides further into chaos by the day. However, with a full-fledged insurgency in Sinai, a large-scale sustained military campaign in Libya seems unlikely.

In Cairo, meanwhile, people responded to the killings with shock and dismay.

“Why would they do something like that?” said Hesham, the owner of a kiosk in central Cairo who asked to be identified only by his first name. “Who are they anyway? Who is Daesh [IS]? Muslim or Christian, those men belong to God, they’re human beings.”