Japan vows not to give up on 2 hostages till 'the very end'
By MARI YAMAGUCHI and ELAINE KURTENBACH

TOKYO (AP) — Japan promised Saturday not to give up "until the very end" on efforts to rescue two Japanese hostages threatened with beheading by Islamic militants demanding a $200 million ransom, after a deadline passed with no word from the captors.

Militants affiliated with the Islamic State group posted an online warning Friday afternoon that the "countdown has begun" for the extremists to kill 47-year-old Kenji Goto and 42-year-old Haruna Yukawa. The extremists gave Prime Minister Shinzo Abe 72 hours to pay the ransom, and the deadline expired Friday.

The posting, which appeared on a forum popular among Islamic State militants and sympathizers, did not show any images of the hostages, who are believed to be held somewhere in Syria.

Yasuhide Nakayama, a deputy foreign minister sent to Amman, Jordan, said he was working around the clock to coordinate efforts to save the hostages.

"We will not rule out any possibility, and we are verifying all information thoroughly," he said. "We will not give up until the very end to rescue the two so we can go home together."

Yet, the fate of the two men remained unclear Saturday.

Top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga was asked about Friday's message and said Japan was analyzing it.

"The situation remains severe, but we are doing everything we can to win the release of the two Japanese hostages," Suga said. He said Japan is using every channel it can find, including local tribal chiefs, to try to reach the captors.

He said there has been no direct contact with the captors.

Abe met Friday with his National Security Council on the crisis.

Japan has scrambled for a way to secure the release of Goto, a journalist, and Yukawa, an adventurer fascinated by war. Japanese diplomats had left Syria as the civil war there escalated, adding to the difficulty of contacting the militants holding the hostages.

Worshippers at Tokyo's largest mosque on Friday offered prayers for the two hostages.

"All Muslims in Japan, we want the Japanese hostages to be saved as soon as possible," said Sandar Basara, a worker from Turkey.

Goto's mother made an appeal for his rescue.

"Time is running out. Please, Japanese government, save my son's life," said Junko Ishido. "My son is not an enemy of the Islamic State."

Ishido said she was astonished and angered to learn from her daughter-in-law that Goto had left for Syria less than two weeks after his child was born in October to try to rescue Yukawa.

Suga said earlier the government had confirmed the identities of the two hostages despite discrepancies in shadows and other details in the ransom video that suggested it might have been altered.

Japanese officials have not directly said whether they are considering paying any ransom. Japan has joined other major industrial nations in the Group of Seven in opposing ransom payments. U.S. and British officials said they advised against paying.
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Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil in Cairo, and Kaori Hitomi and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report.

-- (c) Associated Press 2015-01-24

Terrible situation.

Yes really terrible situation, and for the families of these man I prefer not to think of it, unbearable!

It's a lot of money that would only fund more terror.

They chose to go there so I say let them serve as a reminder not to enter a war zone.

Start a world wide hunt for their coward leaders a la Sadam and ben Laden.

As sad as it is, but if you hang around a burning fire, there is a chance you may get burned. and there is no way Japan is going to give 200million, otherwise you fully open the door for their funding towards terrorism

The key to ending such atrocities is to commit retributive atrocities each and every time these incidents occur.

Looks like the killed one.

Candidly, everyone, be it press, humanatarian, contractors and the like, just needs to stay out of that region for now. If you don't go there, this cannot happen to you.

Yep, they can give up on one...his head is not where it should be to sustain life.

One of the Japanese hostages has been beheaded and the other was made to hold his head after the beheading.

They are now asking for a prisoner exchange for the other Japanese hostage.

Obama's comments, echoed Saturday by British Prime Minister David Cameron who condemned the group's "murderous barbarity," suggested that Western intelligence had authenticated the video posted online.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/world/a/26088725/japan-scrambles-to-verify-video-claiming-hostage-murder/

And the 'moderate' muslims have been marching through European capitals to express their outrage.

Oops! No they haven't. My bad!

It is understood that ISIS are now demanding the release of a female suicide bomber (who didn't suicide).

In this day and age you would think it would be possible to do an exchange and immediately after take her and some filthy scum out, surely they have the capability. The thing is if she's a 'suicide bomber' then she will eventually take a lot more lives, so how can they do an exchange?

The key to ending such atrocities is to commit retributive atrocities each and every time these incidents occur.

The concept being that their will to fight can be broken. However, evidence from multiple conflicts with Islamists, shows quite the opposite.

ISIS and other Islamist militias are not bound by all kinds of warring restrictions, so they can go - "Full Mongol" on their opponents.

Our nations are bound by all kinds of warring restrictions, and our opponents know this only too well to be our achilles heel.

All westernnations can do, is 'manage / contain' these situations, carrying out occasional pruining measures to contain a spread.

Days of total miltiary conquest / annhilation at the hands of western forces are over.

At best, we are allowed to inflict a 'maiming' situation, not an eradication situation. It cuts the growth, but not the roots.

As Israel discovered decades ago, this expensive pruning and containment will have to become part of our reality for decades to come.