The Takfiri terrorist group ISILclaimed Wednesday to have beheaded a Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt.

The Takfiri terrorist group, ISIL (so-called Islamic State in Iraq and Levant), claimed Wednesday to have beheaded a Croatian hostage abducted in Egypt, posting a purported picture of the victim's body on ISIL-affiliated Twitter accounts.

The Croat, Tomislav Salopek, was abducted last month west of the capital Cairo. The Takfiris had issued a 48-hour deadline that ended last Friday threatening to kill him if Muslim women prisoners were not released from Egyptian jails.

The picture's authenticity could not be immediately verified.

His abduction and purported killing were unprecedented in Egypt, which is battling an ISIL insurgency in the eastern Sinai Peninsula.

State-run Croatian news agency HINA quoted a foreign ministry source as saying it "does not have confirmation that abducted Croatian citizen Tomislav Salopek has been killed."

The picture was posted on ISIL-affiliated Twitter accounts with the caption: "Execution of prisoner from Croatia -- which has participated in war on Islamic State -- after deadline ended," referring to ISIL.

Salopek, a 31-year-old father of two, had been working with French geoscience company CGG when abducted from a car roughly 22 kilometers west of Cairo, security sources told AFP.