A video released on internet to show the Islamic State threatening to kill 2 Japanese hostages if they not given $200 million ransom in the next 3 daysVideo is made by the IISI's al-Furqan media arm and posted on websites associated with the ISIS. The terrorist in it directly addresses Japanese PM Shinzo Abe, now on a six-day visit to the Middle East with. Talking in Jerusalem, Abe vowed to save the captives, identified by the ISIS as
Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa. He appealed the Islamic State group to immediately release both hostages
"Their lives are the precious," Abe said. He further said "Terrorism and Islam are totally different things."
"To the prime minister of Japan: Although you are more than 8,000 and 500 kilometers (5,280 miles) from the Islamic State, you willingly have volunteered to take part in this crusade," says the knife-brandishing militant in the video, who resembles and sounds like a British militant involved in other filmed beheadings. "You have proudly donated $100 million to kill our women and children, to destroy the homes of the Muslims."
Japan's Foreign Ministry's anti-terrorism section has seen the video and analysts are assessing it, a ministry official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of department rules.
Speaking in Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to say whether Japan would pay the ransom.
"If true, the act of threat in exchange of people's lives is unforgivable and we feel strong indignation," Suga told journalists. "We will make our utmost effort to win their release as soon as possible."
In August, a Japanese citizen believed to be Yukawa, a private military company operator in his early 40s, was kidnapped in Syria after going there to train with militants, according to a post on a blog kept. Pictures on his Facebook page show him in Iraq and Syria in July. One video on his page showed him holding a Kalashnikov assault rifle with the caption: "Syria war in Aleppo 2014."
"I cannot identify the destination," Yukawa wrote in his last blog post. "But the next one could be the most dangerous." He added: "I hope to film my fighting scenes during an upcoming visit."
Yukawa's father, Shoichi, who lives in Chiba, just outside Tokyo, expressed shock over the news in an interview with Japanese public television station NKH.
"I don't understand this," he said. "I'm quite confused."
Goto is a respected Japanese freelance journalist who went to report on Syria's civil war last year and knew of Yukawa.
"I'm in Syria for reporting," he wrote in an email to an Associated Press journalist in October. "I hope I can convey the atmosphere from where I am and share it."
The Islamic State group has beheaded and shot dead hundreds of captives — mainly Syrian and Iraqi soldiers — during its sweep across the two countries, and has celebrated its mass killings in extremely graphic videos. A British-accented jihadi also has appeared in the beheading videos of slain American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and with British hostages David Haines and Alan Henning.
