Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe shifted his Middle East visit into crisis mode after a militant purportedly linked to the Islamic State threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless the extremist group receives a $200 million ransom within the next 72 hours.
The video, posted on militants’ Web sites Tuesday, shows an apparent Islamic State fighter wielding a knife, standing between two hostages wearing orange jumpsuits whom the militants identify as Kenji Goto Jogo and Haruna Yukawa.
Jogo is a jouralist missing since October. Yukawa, who was last scene in August, appears to have been drawn to Syria in attempts to reinvent himself as a military consultant.
“You now have 72 hours to pressure your government into making a wise decision by paying the $200 million to save the lives of your citizens,” he told the camera.
The video came as Abe was wrapping up a nearly weeklong visit to the Middle East, which included pledges to work with Israel on counterterrorism efforts. Hours after the video was posted, Abe canceled several meetings — but kept talks with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on his agenda — and dispatched a senior envoy to Jordan, whose intelligence services keep close watch on the Islamic State.
Japan is not taking part in the U.S.-led international military coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. But Abe last week pledged $2.5 billion in humanitarian and development aid for countries in the region opposing the Islamic States. Abe also offered $200 million in non-military assistance to countries fighting the group.
“It is unforgivable,” said Abe, who is scheduled to return to Tokyo on Wednesday after a six-day visit to the Middle East with more than 100 government officials and presidents of Japanese companies. He added: “Extremism and Islam are completely different things.”
The militant in the video — speaking English with a British accent — addressed Abe directly, demanding cash as compensation for the country’s part in countering the Islamic State.
“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,” he said. “You have proudly donated $100 million to kill our women and children, to destroy the homes of the Muslims.”
Other militant groups, including al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen, have set ransom prices for hostages in the past. But most previous Islamic State videos focused primarily on the Western-led military intervention in the region and the group’s self-proclaimed goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate.
In Tokyo, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga declined to say whether Japan would consider paying 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.”
A senior Japanese diplomat who declined to be named because he was not authorised to speak on the subject said Yogo, a well-respected Japanese journalist, was last heard from on Oct. 24. He had told friends he was traveling to Kobane, a flashpoint town on the Turkish-Syrian border, but it is unclear exactly where he was kidnapped, the diplomat said. Yogo had been reporting on Syria’s civil war.
“I’m in Syria for reporting,” he told the AP in an e-mail late last year. “I hope I can convey the atmosphere from where I am and share it.”
Yukawa went missing in August.
“We don’t know what he does exactly,” the diplomat said. “He says he runs a private military company, but we don’t have these kinds of companies in Japan. We believe he is a military fanatic, but he doesn’t have any official military experience. He’s not a fighter.”
“Officially we don’t pay ransoms,” he added. “In some incidents in the past we might have paid but we’d never announce it. I don’t know what will happen now.”
When Yukawa was captured, he was in Syria, trying to find himself. In recent years, he lost his wife to lung cancer. He lost his business to a fragile economy. And he lost his home to bankruptcy, according to Newsweek.
He changed his name to Haruna and attempted suicide. He believed he was “the reincarnation of a cross-dressing Manchu princess” who had spied for Japan in World War II, Newsweek reported.
In 2013, Yukawa decided to become a security consultant, borrowed some cash and hopped a plane to Syria. He planned to provide consulting services to major Japanese companies in conflict zones. He would start there. “He felt his life had reached its limit,” his 74-year-old father, Shoichi Yukawa, told Newsweek.
In a blog post last summer, Yukawa talked about working with the Free Syrian Army.
“I’m very happy and I too want to quickly meet up with them,” he said. “I want to devote the rest of my life to others and save many people. I want to make my mark on history one more time.”
In the purported Islamic State video, the men kneel as a militant stands between them.
A militant with a British accent has also spoken in beheading videos with slain American hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and British hostages David Haines and Alan Henning. This is the first time the group has targeted the Japanese.
The government official Suga said the threats will not alter Japanese policies, according to the Japan Times.
“Our country’s stance — contributing to the fight against terrorism without giving in — remains unchanged,” he said.
Although Japan is rarely drawn directly into Middle East conflicts, some Japanese have been taken hostage by the Islamist militant group Abu Sayyaf in the Philippines. In 2004, followers of Jordanian-born militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq beheaded a Japanese backpacker, Shosei Koda, in apparent reprisal for Japanese soldiers assigned to humanitarian work in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi’s faction became the ideological core for the eventual Islamic State.
*Washington Post
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