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| ISIS demands $200 million for Japanese hostages |
(CNN)The militant group ISIS has threatened to kill two Japanese hostages 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 against the
backdrop of a barren landscape.
The
masked man links the threat against the two men's lives to Japan's
support for the U.S.-led coalition that's 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.
The international community
needs to "deal with terrorists without giving into them," Abe said at a
news conference in Jerusalem after the release of the video. But he
stopped short of explicitly ruling out the payment of a ransom or
negotiations with the hostages' captors.
Abe,
who is reorganizing his trip to deal with the hostage crisis, said he
had ordered Japanese officials to do the utmost to try to save the two
men. The Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said it was working to
confirm the authenticity of the video.
The masked man in the video identifies the two kneeling men as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa.
A lost soul and a journalist
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.
He claimed to have set
up a company in Tokyo providing armed security services and posted
videos online of his activities in Iraq and Syria.
But a report by the news agency Reuters
in August portrayed him as a lost soul, who went to the Middle East
searching for a purpose after losing his wife, his business and his home
over the previous decade.
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.
Goto was a freelance journalist who reported for various Japanese news organizations about the situation in the Syrian battleground city of Kobani and other areas. His last Twitter post was on October 23.
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.
ISIS has also gained notoriety for its ruthless treatment of some groups in the territory under its control who don't share its extremist interpretation of Islam.
Japan's anti-ISIS aid pledge
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
post-World War II constitution allows it to use its military only for
self-defense, hasn't 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
masked 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.
Abe said Tuesday that he
would not change the policy of providing the financial aid, which he
said was desperately needed to help people survive.
The
Japanese Prime Minister previously had to deal with a hostage crisis
involving Islamic militants in January 2013, when 10 Japanese citizens
were caught up in the terrorist seizure of a natural gas facility in Algeria.
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