CAIRO, Egypt (AFP) – The Islamic State group released a video yesterday purportedly showing the beheading of Egyptian Coptic Christians the jihadists say they captured in Libya.Hundreds of tombs defaced in French Jewish cemetery: ministerTwo Saudis beheaded for murderFemale suicide bomber kills 16 in northeast Nigeria

The footage released online shows handcuffed hostages wearing orange jumpsuits being beheaded by their black-suited captors on a seashore in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

In the latest issue of the IS online magazine Dabiq, the group said 21 Egyptian hostages were being held, and pictures showed a similar background.

The video, titled “A message signed with blood to the nation of the cross”, has a scrolling caption in the first few seconds saying it is directed at “People of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian Church”.

Yesterday’s video comes just days after IS released a video showing the gruesome burning alive of a Jordanian pilot it captured after his F-16 came down in Syria in December.

A spokesman for the Egyptian foreign ministry confirmed to AFP in Cairo that 20 Egyptians had been kidnapped in two separate incidents in neighbouring Libya.

PARIS, France (AFP) – France’s interior minister said yesterday several hundred tombs had been defaced at a Jewish cemetery in the northeast of the country, in what he called “a despicable act”.

“The country will not tolerate this new injury which goes against the values that all French people share,” said Bernard Cazeneuve without giving further details of the incident in the town of Sarre-Union in the Alsace region.

“Every effort will be made to identify, question and bring to justice the person or persons responsible for this despicable act,” he added.

French President Francois Hollande added his voice to the condemnation, calling the desecration an “odious and barbaric act” while Prime Minister Manuel Valls, writing on Twitter, described it as “anti-Semitic and ignoble”.

It is not the first time that a Jewish cemetery in Sarre-Union has been targeted.

In 1988, around 60 Jewish steles, stone or wooden slabs often used for commemorative purposes, were knocked over, and 54 tombs were wrecked in 2001.

News of the latest incident comes just over a month after an Islamist gunman shot dead four Jews in a kosher supermarket siege in Paris and less than 24 hours after a fatal shooting at a synagogue in Copenhagen.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AFP) – Two Saudis condemned to death for murder in separate cases were beheaded by the sword in Riyadh yesterday, taking to 31 the number of executions in the kingdom this year.

Interior ministry statements published by the official SPA news agency said that both Nawaf al-Shemmari and Saad al-Houzaimi had been found guilty of stabbing relatives.

The desert kingdom continues to execute convicts despite pressure from human rights groups.

Drug trafficking, rape, murder, apostasy and armed robbery are all punishable by death under the kingdom’s strict version of Islamic sharia law.

The Gulf nation executed 87 people last year, up from 78 in 2013.

MAIDUGURI, Nigeria (AP) — A teenage female suicide bomber blew herself up at crowded bus station in northeast Nigeria on yesterday, killing at least 16 and wounding 30 others.

Most of the victims were children who had either been selling peanuts or begging for money at the time of the explosion, said witnesses.

The bomber managed to get through the security check at the entrance to the bus station in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe state, and detonated herself at 1 p.m. local time.

“It was an eyesore looking at the scene which is littered with chopped flesh and battered bodies of victims,” said Hassan Umar.

The suicide bomber was a teenager, said Umar who said he saw her remains.

“The girl that carried out the suicide should be around 16 years old, because her face was a bit matured,” said Hassan.

No one has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.