“The voice of a person claiming to be Goto speaks over the image, saying in English that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to blame for Yukawa’s death.” Of course. Islamic jihadists don’t believe that they are ever to blame for anything. Everything they do is the fault of the Infidels. And all too many Infidels aid them in this impression by swallowing their claims whole and fronting for the assertion that if the Infidels just curtailed the behavior the jihadis disliked, all would be well. In other words, surrender will bring peace.
“ISIS apparently demands release of terrorist to spare Japanese hostage,” by Jethro Mullen and Junko Ogura, CNN, January 26, 2015:
Tokyo (CNN)ISIS appears to have beheaded one of its Japanese hostages and is demanding the release of a convicted terrorist in Jordan to spare the other.
A video file posted online Saturday by a known ISIS supporter shows an image of one hostage, Kenji Goto, holding a photo of what appears to be the corpse of his fellow captive, Haruna Yukawa.
The voice of a person claiming to be Goto speaks over the image, saying in English that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is to blame for Yukawa’s death.
“You were given a deadline,” he says, referring to ISIS’ earlier demand that Japan pay $200 million by Friday to save the lives of the two hostages.
The voice then announces a new ultimatum: the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman facing the death penalty in Jordan for her role in a series of bombings in 2005 that killed dozens of people at hotels in the Arab kingdom.
Al-Bayan Radio, an ISIS-affiliated online station, reported the extremist group’s killing of Yukawa and the prisoner swap demand for Goto in its newscast Sunday. It didn’t identify Goto by name.
‘Outrageous and impermissible’
Abe condemned the apparent killing of Yukawa and called for Goto to be released immediately.
“Such act of terrorism is outrageous and impermissible, which causes me nothing but strong indignation,” he said.
Experts are analyzing the video, which seems “highly credible,” Abe said, an assessment shared by U.S. authorities, who said they had no reason to doubt its authenticity.
But Goto’s stepfather, Yukio Ishido, raised doubts about whether it was his stepson’s voice in the video.
“I get the sense it’s not his voice,” he told reporters. “I’ve heard his English a couple times. I felt it was a bit different.”
Abe declined to comment on how his government would respond to the new demand, which doesn’t appear to have a clear deadline.
“I would be surprised if the Jordanian government or Japan really pushed forward and released this female suicide bomber as ISIS has requested,” said CNN global affairs analyst David Rohde, referring to al-Rishawi, whose explosives failed to go off in the hotel attack in which she participated.
After ISIS released the first video of the hostages Tuesday, Japan set up a crisis center in Jordan and said it was trying to communicate with the militant group through third parties, such as governments in the region and tribal leaders.
Japanese officials declined to explicitly rule out paying a ransom but said they wouldn’t yield to terrorism. They stressed that an aid package Abe had pledged to countries affected by ISIS, cited by the militant group as the reason for the huge ransom demand, was only for humanitarian purposes….