Betsy Hiel in the Pittsburg Tribune-Review:
The men worked in Sirte, midway between Benghazi and Tripoli on Libya’s coast and the birthplace of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, who was killed there by rebels in 2011.
They lived in 15-room compounds, each with a fenced and gated courtyard.
The ISIS gunmen easily scaled the fences, they said.
“There were two rooms for Christians,” recalled Hamdi Ashour, 29, a construction worker who shared Mahrouf’s quarters. “We pointed out one.”
He and the frightened workers said Christian men sleeping in the second room “were our cousins from our village and were Muslim,” Ashour said. “If they opened up that second door, we would have been killed, too,” because the gunmen would have easily discovered that the sleeping men were Copts.
“They opened up the first room and took seven Christians.”
“Of course, we were afraid,” said Mahrouf, explaining the horrible decision they made at gunpoint. “These people came at us with weapons loaded and banging on the door.”
Hostages dead, survivors saddled with guilt. What drives men to commit such crimes? Mundane problems such as lack of jobs? Or is religious mania to blame?
(h/t The Arabist)
