Islamic State threatens to kill Japanese hostages

The Islamic State militant group threatened to kill two Japanese hostages unless it receives a US$200 million ransom within 72 hours, but Tokyo vowed yesterday it would not give in to “terrorism.”
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who was in Jerusalem on the latest leg of a Middle East tour, demanded that the militants immediately free the two hostages unharmed.
He was to fly home after an early afternoon summit with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to take charge of the crisis, cutting short the rest of his tour.
Islamic State, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, has murdered five Western hostages since August last year, but it is the first time that the extremist group — which has seized swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq — has threatened Japanese captives.
In footage posted on jihadist Web sites, a black-clad militant brandishing a knife addresses the camera in English, standing between hostages Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, who are wearing orange jumpsuits.
“You now have 72 hours to pressure your government into making a wise decision by paying the US$200 million to save the lives of your citizens,” he says.
The militant says that the ransom demand is to compensate for non-military aid that the Japanese prime minister pledged to support countries affected by Islamic State violence at the start of his Middle East tour, but Abe said Japan would not bow to extremism and pledged to honor his promise of aid.