Egypt Militant Group Says it Killed U.S. Oil Worker

Associated Press 

CAIRO--An Egyptian militant organization allied with Islamic State has claimed responsibility for the killing of an American oil worker.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, which now refers to itself as the Sinai Province, said on its official Twitter account late Sunday that it killed William Henderson. It published pictures of his passport and two identification cards. It didn't say when or how it killed him.

The passport said he was a 58-year-old from Texas and his identification cards said he worked for Texas-based energy company Apache Corp. and Qarun Petroleum Co., a joint venture with Egypt.

Apache said in August that one of its supervisors had been killed in an apparent carjacking in Egypt's Western Desert. The company didn't identify the man.

The Enid News & Eagle in northwestern Oklahoma published an obituary for a man named William Henderson in August, saying he had "passed suddenly" while working in Egypt. It said he had worked for Apache for 28 years and was 58 when he died.

The U.S. embassy declined to comment on the militant group's claim, and Apache couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Ansar Beit al-Maqdis, a Sinai-based jihadist group, has carried out scores of attacks mainly targeting Egyptian security forces, particularly since the July 2013 overthrow of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi. Last month it pledged allegiance to Islamic State, which controls vast swaths of Syria and Iraq.

In a separate statement late Sunday, the Egyptian group claimed to have carried out more than 10 attacks in the past four weeks. It said it blew up six army and police armored vehicles, killed seven police officers and conscripts, and demolished the house of a man accused of being a spy for the army.

The northern part of the Sinai Peninsula has been under a state of emergency since the group attacked an army checkpoint in October, killing 31 soldiers.

Copyright 2014 Associated Press

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