'Countdown' begins for IS killings

Warning posted online shows gruesome images as deadline to pay $200m ransom expires

Militants affiliated with the Islamic State group have posted an online warning that the "countdown has begun" for the group to kill a pair of Japanese hostages held in Syria.

The posting, which appeared on Friday, shows a clock counting down to zero along with gruesome images of other hostages who have been beheaded by the Islamic State group.

The militant group gave Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a 72-hour deadline - which expired on Friday afternoon - to pay a $200 million ransom for the two hostages.

The posting on a forum popular among Islamic State militants and sympathizers did not show any images of the Japanese hostages.

In the past the website has posted Islamic State group videos quickly, sometimes before anyone else. Nippon Television Network first reported the message in Japan.

The status of efforts to free the two men was unclear.

Government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, when asked about the latest message, 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 made by the hostage takers.

At Tokyo's largest mosque, worshippers included the hostages in their Friday prayers.

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

Abe convened his National Security Council to discuss how to handle the crisis, as the mother of one of the captives appealed for her son's rescue.

"Time is running out. Please, Japanese government, save my son's life," said Junko Ishido, the mother of 47-year-old journalist Kenji Goto.

"My son is not an enemy of the Islamic State," she said in a tearful appearance in Tokyo.

"I say to you people of the Islamic State, Kenji is not your enemy. Please release him," she said.

"Kenji was always saying 'I hope to save lives of children on battlefields'. He was reporting war from a neutral position."

Ishido said she was astonished and angered to learn from her daughter-in-law that Goto had left less than two weeks after his child was born, in October, to go to Syria to try to rescue the other hostage, 42-year-old Haruna Yukawa.

Yukawa is variously described as the owner of a private military company, or an adventurer.

Ishido apologized repeatedly for "all the trouble my son has caused" and said she had not had any contact with the government.

AP - AFP

(China Daily 01/24/2015 page12)