ISIS threatens to kill 2 Japanese hostages unless Tokyo pays $200 million: The international community needs to deal with terrorists without giving into them, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Tuesday after the militant group ISIS demanded $200 million for the release of two Japanese hostages. But Abe, who was speaking at a news conference in Jerusalem, stopped short of explicitly ruling out the payment of a ransom or negotiations with the hostages captors. [Original story, posted at 3:57 a.m. ET] The militant group ISIS has threatened to kill two Japanese citizens unless Tokyo hands over $200 million within 72 hours. In a video posted online Tuesday, a masked man clad in black and holding a knife stands over two kneeling men in orange jumpsuits in a barren landscape. The masked man links the threat against the two mens lives to Japans support for the U.S.-led coalition thats fighting ISIS in Iraq and Syria. Although you are more than 8,500 kilometers away from the Islamic State, you willingly volunteered to take part in this crusade, the man says, addressing his comments to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who is currently visiting the Middle East. Abe is reorganizing his trip to deal with the hostage crisis, said Japanese government spokesman Yoshihide Suga. The Japanese Foreign Ministry said it was working to confirm the authenticity of the video. If it is genuine, Japanese authorities would be outraged at the threat against the hostages, the ministry said. The government of Japan will make maximum efforts for the early release of the Japanese citizens in cooperation with relevant countries, it said. The masked man in the video identifies the two men as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa. Grimly familiar imagery The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported that Yukawa is a 42-year-old who is believed to have been captured in Syria in August while traveling with rebel fighters. Japanese officials in Jordan had being trying to secure his release, including talking to various groups with possible connections to his captors, Kyodo reported previously. The imagery of the video is grimly familiar from previous ISIS videos in which American and British hostages were shown beheaded or being threatened with death. ISIS began publicizing its brutal killings of Western hostages in August when it released a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley. His death was followed by those of American journalist Steven Sotloff, British aid worker David Haines, British taxi driver Alan Henning and U.S. aid worker Peter Kassig. The United States began carrying out airstrikes against ISIS in Iraq in August in an effort to help Iraqi forces battling the militants. U.S. forces then expanded the air campaign against ISIS targets into Syria in September, with the support of an international coalition including some Arab nations. Japan, whose constitution only allows it to use its military for self-defense, hasnt taken part in the airstrikes. But in a speech Sunday in Cairo, Abe pledged $200 million to help countries contending with ISIS to help build human capacities, infrastructure and so on. The speaker in the ISIS video appeared to make a reference to that pledge as he threatened the Japanese hostages and demanded the same sum as a ransom.
Posted on: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 09:37:54 +0000
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