The Islamic State militant group threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless it receives a US$200 million ransom within 72 hours, but Tokyo vowed yesterday it would not give in to “terrorism.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in Jerusalem on the latest leg of a Middle East tour, demanded that the militants immediately free the two hostages unharmed.
He was to fly home after an early afternoon summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take charge of the crisis, cutting short the rest of his tour.
Photo: Reuters
Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has murdered five Western hostages since August last year, but it is the first time that the extremist group — which has seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq — has threatened Japanese captives.
In footage posted on jihadist Web sites, a black-clad militant brandishing a knife addresses the camera in English, standing between hostages Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, who are wearing orange jumpsuits.
“You now have 72 hours to pressure your government into making a wise decision by paying the US$200 million to save the lives of your citizens,” he says.
The militant says that the ransom demand is to compensate for non-military aid that the Japanese prime minister pledged to support countries affected by Islamic State violence at the start of his Middle East tour, but Abe said Japan would not bow to extremism and pledged to honor his promise of aid.
“I strongly demand that they not be harmed and that they be immediately released,” Abe told a news conference in Jerusalem. “The international community will not give in to terrorism and we have to make sure that we work together.”
Abe said the aid he promised in Cairo on Saturday was to help displaced people and those made homeless by the conflict.
“This posture will not change at all,” he said.
Abe pledged a total of US$2.5 billion in humanitarian and development aid for the Middle East.
He promised US$200 million in non-military assistance for nations affected by Islamic State’s bloody expansion in Iraq and Syria, which spurred an exodus of refugees to neighboring nations.
Since August last year, Islamic State has murdered three Americans and two Britons, posting grisly video footage of their executions.
Goto is a freelance journalist who set up a video production company, named Independent Press in Tokyo, in 1996, feeding video documentaries on the Middle East and other regions to Japanese television networks, including public broadcaster NHK.
The other hostage appeared in previous footage posted in August last year in which he identified himself as Haruna Yukawa and was shown being roughly interrogated.
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