An image from a video posted online on Tuesday showing a man threatening to kill two Japanese hostages, identified as Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa. Credit Islamic State group, via Associated Press
LONDON — A video posted online on Tuesday by the Islamic State extremist group depicted a black-clad militant with a knife threatening to kill two Japanese hostages within 72 hours unless the government in Tokyo paid a ransom of $200 million.
The video showed two men, identified as Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, kneeling on a rocky hillside with the masked militant standing between them.
It was thought to be the first time that the militant group had made clear in a video that it wanted money, and that it cited the amount. Previously, the group had threatened to kill hostages if unspecified demands were not met.
The 72-hour deadline also seemed to represent a break with the framing of earlier threats. But the amount of ransom involved was consistent with failed efforts — not made public by the militants at the time — to extort money in return for the release of American hostages.
The SITE intelligence group, an organization that tracks jihadist propaganda, said the one-minute 40-second English-language video — titled “A Message to the Government and People of Japan†— had been produced by Al Furqan, an Islamic State media outlet.
Photo
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan on Tuesday demanded the immediate release of two Japanese hostages. Credit Thomas Coex/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The militant appeared to be the same English-accented figure that has appeared in earlier videos by the Islamic State showing the execution of two Americans, James Foley and Steven J. Sotloff, and two Britons, David Cawthorne Haines and Alan Henning. In Britain, the militant is often referred to by the news media as “Jihadi John.â€
The militant linked the ransom demand to a Japanese offer of assistance to enemies of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and ISIL, which controls a large amount of territory stretching from Syria into Iraq and says it is seeking to establish an Islamic caliphate.
“To the Japanese public, just as how your government has made the foolish decision to pay 200 million to fight the Islamic State, you now have 72 hours to pressure your government in making a wise decision by paying the 200 million to save the lives of your citizens,†the masked man said in the video. “Otherwise this knife will become your nightmare.â€
The mandid not specify a currency, but a subtitle in Arabic identified it as dollars.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan made the promise of nonmilitary assistance to foes of the Islamic State on Saturday during a visit to Cairo on a Middle East tour.
The hostages in the video wore orange jumpsuits, the attire of many of the group’s captives in previous videos. The threat thrust Japan into the sort of high-profile hostage dilemma that has vexed the United States and Britain, which both say they refuse to pay ransoms.
“Our country will not be intimidated by terrorism,†the main government spokesman, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, said in Tokyo, “and there is no change to our policy of contributing to the international community’s fight against terrorism.â€
Speaking at his daily news conference, Mr. Suga, declined to answer questions about whether Japan would pay the demanded ransom.
Continue reading the main story
Graphic: The Fates of 23 ISIS Hostages in Syria
At a news conference in Jerusalem on Tuesday, Mr. Abe said he would not curtail his trip and would keep appointments with political leaders, but that he would skip less important engagements in order to stay on top of the hostage crisis.
“Using human lives as a shield to make threats is an unforgivable terrorist act, and I am extremely indignant,†he said. “I strongly demand that they be released unharmed immediately.â€
Mr. Abe said that a priority for Japan was to safeguard lives and that he had ordered officials handling the crisis to do everything they could to achieve that goal. He said that a senior official had been sent to Jordan to manage the hostage crisis.
Mr. Abe also said that Japan would not withdraw the $200 million it has pledged in nonmilitary aid to the region, including food and medicine for Iraqi and Syrian refugees.
The abductions were the top item on news programs in Japan, where many voters have been nervous about Mr. Abe’s efforts to give the long-pacifist nation a higher profile in international events
According to the website of Mr. Yukawa, the chief executive of the private security firm PMC, he was captured in Syria in August. He was shown last year in a video posted online lying bleeding on the ground, being interrogated in English. He told his interrogators that he was working as a doctor and a journalist, but the interrogator also asked why he was carrying a weapon. PMC’s website links to video of him firing an AK-47 assault rifle in Aleppo, Syria, along with other images of him Iraq and Syria.
Several antigovernment activists in Syria, reached via Facebook and Skype, said the man who was shown in videos, said to depict Mr. Yukawa’s capture and interrogation, was fighting alongside the Islamic Front — a rival to the Islamic State — when he was detained. At the time, the Islamic State was advancing on Marea, a town in the Syrian province of Aleppo.
The Islamic Front is a coalition of Islamist insurgents, mainly Syrians, that is opposed to the Islamic State and shunned by the West.
Continue reading the main story
Interactive Graphic: How the Air Campaign Against ISIS Grew
Mr. Goto’s website, Independent Press, describes him as a freelance journalist who focuses on war, refugees, poverty, AIDS and education.
Before his capture, Mr. Goto detailed his travels in a series of videos on YouTube. At least two of the videos were filmed near Kobani, a Kurdish town on Syria’s border with Turkey that has been the site of intense fighting for months. Another video features a headline in English: “Journalist Goto Heads For the Syrian Border.â€
In a separate posting, Mr. Goto spoke of his encounter with a fellow Japanese citizen who was seeking to join the militant group that is now threatening to execute him. “A Japanese student was trying to become a combatant of the Islamic State, which was a surprise to me,†he said in the video. “The war means he has to kill people. I wonder if he really understood it or not.â€
The video on Tuesday was reminiscent of events in November 2004, when Japan had 550 troops in Iraq as part of the American-led coalition, and Shosei Koda, a 24-year-old Japanese tourist, was kidnapped and decapitated by a militant group seeking their withdrawal. The prime minister at the time, Junichiro Koizumi, rejected the demand.
“We cannot lose to terrorism,†Mr. Koizumi said, “we must not yield to brute force.â€
Earlier the same year, five Japanese hostages kidnapped in two separate incidents were freed and returned home to opprobrium for what was considered their selfish action in traveling to Iraq against government advice.
The threat to kill the two Japanese hostages fit a pattern of summary justice and abductions in areas controlled by the Islamic State, including in Iraq, according to international monitors.
On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights office in Geneva chronicled scores of killings in Iraq this month, often in public, and said that there had also been frequent kidnappings of civilians then held for ransom. Educated women appeared to be particularly at risk, the office said in a news release.
In one case, two men accused of banditry in Iraq were crucified and then shot after a summary hearing by an improvised court said to have cited Shariah, a legal code based on the Quran. Two other men, who had been accused of homosexual acts, were thrown off a roof.
The killings provided “another terrible example of the kind of monstrous disregard for human life that characterizes ISIL’s reign of terror over areas of Iraq that are under the group’s control,†the United Nations said.
No comments:
Post a Comment