Egypt: Fears rise for Croatian hostage held by militants

(MENAFN- Arab News) CAIRO: Fears mounted Friday over the fate of a Croatian abducted near Cairo by Daesh militants who have threatened to execute him unless Muslim women in Egyptian jails are freed.
Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic said she would talk to her Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah El-Sisi by telephone as the 48-hour deadline set by the militants on Wednesday neared.
Egypt's Foreign Ministry said it was making 'intensive efforts' to locate Tomislav Salopek a 31-year-old working for French geoscience company CGG kidnapped last month.
The abduction unprecedented for Egypt has rattled foreigners working for multinational companies and underscored the militants' reach despite a massive military campaign against Daesh.
Although it has been battling a Daesh insurgency in the sparsely populated Sinai Peninsula the North African country has been spared the hostage-taking of foreigners and horrific executions carried out by militants in Syria and Libya.
Salopek's father appealed to the kidnappers to release the father of two as Croatian Foreign Minister Vesna Pusic traveled to Cairo for emergency talks.
'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' Zlatko Salopek told AFP at the family's home in the eastern Croatian town of Vrpolje.
After talks between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry and Pusic Cairo said: 'We will not spare any effort to find the hostage and guarantee his security.'
Salopek appeared in a Daesh video released on the Internet on Wednesday kneeling next to a masked militant holding a knife.
He read out from a piece of paper that his captors would execute him within 48 hours if Cairo failed to release female prisoners a key demand of militants over the past two years.
Thousands of people mostly militants have been jailed since the army overthrew President Muhammad Mursi in 2013 and unleashed a crackdown on his supporters.
Salopek was abducted last month on a road running from the west of Cairo. His driver was left unharmed and police say they have questioned him.
In his hometown neighbors were braced waiting for news of Salopek described as a friendly young man.
'I think that every inhabitant of Vrpolje is very upset and sad fearing the outcome. We fear the worst but we all have a hope that it will end well after all although time is running out' neighbor Miro Hrastovic said.
It was not clear where the militants were holding him in the vast and mostly desert country.
While the fighters operate mostly in Sinai northeast Egypt they have also conducted attacks in the western desert over the past two years.
Formerly known as Ansar Beit Al-Maqdis the group changed its name when it pledged allegiance to Daesh in November.
In December they claimed responsibility for the murder of an American working for petroleum company Apache also west of Cairo.
Last month Daesh said it was behind a car bombing at the Italian consulate in Cairo the first such attack against a foreign mission in Egypt since militants began their campaign following the crackdown on rebels.
The video of Salopek was released the day before a lavish ceremony at the Suez Canal to celebrate an expansion of the waterway.
Sissi who as army chief toppled Mursi pledged at the ceremony to 'defeat' the militants.
The army says it has killed more than 1000 of them but the insurgency in Sinai which neighbors the Gaza Strip and Israel appears unabated.
The militants have killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen and they even destroyed a navy vessel with a wire-guided missile last month.