Twenty-one martyrs made in Libya today:

Islamic State released a video on Sunday purporting to show the beheading of a group of Egyptian Christians kidnapped in Libya, violence likely to deepen Cairo’s concerns over security threats from militants thriving in the neighboring country’s chaos.

Egypt’s state news agency MENA quoted the spokesman for the Coptic Church as confirming that 21 Egyptian Christians believed to be held by Islamic State were dead.

In the video, militants in black marched the captives, dressed in orange jump suits, to a beach that the group said was near Tripoli. They were forced down onto their knees, then beheaded.

The video appeared on the Twitter feed of a website that supports Islamic State, which has seized parts of Iraq and Syria and has also beheaded Western hostages.

A caption on the five-minute video read: “The people of the cross, followers of the hostile Egyptian church.”

Lord have mercy.