By Luke Baker
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - The militant group Islamic State
released an online video on Tuesday purporting to show two Japanese captives
and threatening to kill them unless it received $200 million in ransom.
A black-clad figure with a knife, standing in a barren
landscape along with two kneeling men wearing orange clothing, said the
Japanese public had 72 hours to pressure their government to stop its
"foolish" support for the U.S.-led coalition waging a military campaign
against Islamic State.
"To the prime minister of Japan: Although you are more
than 8,500 km away from the Islamic State, you willingly have volunteered to
take part in this crusade," said the militant, who spoke in English.
He demanded "200 million" without specifying a
currency, but an Arabic subtitle identified it as U.S. dollars.
The footage named the men as Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto.
The video was not dated, but on a visit to Cairo on Jan. 17,
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe pledged around $200 million in non-military
assistance for countries battling Islamic State.
Abe, speaking in Jerusalem on Tuesday near the end of a
six-day tour of the Middle East, said Islamic State's threat against the two
purported captives was "unacceptable".
"Extremism and Islam are completely different
things," Abe said. "We strongly demand the immediate release of the
Japanese citizens unharmed The international community needs to respond
firmly and cooperate without caving into terrorism."
The video resembled others distributed by Islamic State
outlets in which captives were threatened or killed. It appeared to be the
first time that an Islamic State video specifically demanded cash for captives.
CABINET MEETS IN TOKYO
Abe stressed that Japan's aid announced on his trip was for
humanitarian purposes, and said Tokyo would keep contributing to peace and
prosperity in the region.
"We'll coordinate with the international community from
now on, and contribute more to (the) peace and prosperity of the region. This policy
is unwavering and we won't change this policy."
The apparent capture of the two men marks the first hostage
crisis for Abe's government since January 2013, when 10 Japanese were killed by
Islamist militants at a gas complex in Algeria.
Asked whether Japan would pay ransom to secure the captives'
release, Abe replied: "With regard to this case, we attach the utmost
priority to saving lives, and gathering information with the help of other
countries."
In Tokyo, Japan's foreign ministry said it was checking the
authenticity of the video. In televised remarks, Parliamentary Senior
Vice-Minister of Defense Akira Sato told reporters that, after viewing the
footage, he thought it might be a "composite".
Goto is a freelance reporter who was based in Tokyo. He has
written books on AIDS and children in war zones from Afghanistan to Africa and
reported for news broadcasters in Japan.
Goto met Yukawa last year and helped him travel to Iraq in
June, he told Reuters in August.
Yukawa, 43, travelled to Iraq and Syria last year after
telling friends and family that he thought it represented a last chance to turn
his life around.
Over the previous decade, he had lost a business to
bankruptcy, lost his wife to cancer and become homeless, according to his
father and an online journal.
It was not clear what exactly he was doing in the region.
Yukawa's father, Shoichi Yukawa, declined to comment, saying he was overwhelmed
by the news reports.
The militant in the footage, who spoke with a British
accent, appeared to have the same voice as a jihadist shown with captives in
previous Islamic State videos.
Similar videos have shown captives beheaded, including
Western aid workers and journalists.
The hardline Islamist group, which holds territory in Syria
and Iraq, has also killed more than 1,000 Syrians off the battlefield since it
expanded a caliphate under its control in June, according to a monitoring
group.
(Reporting by Luke Baker in Jerusalem, William Maclean in
Dubai, Sylvia Westall in Beirut and Linda Sieg, Teppei Kasai and Tetsushi
Kajimoto in Tokyo; Editing by Mike Collett-White)
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