Japan Vows Not To Give Up On 2 Hostages ‘Until The Very End’

Japan promised Saturday not to give up “until the very end” on efforts to free 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 had set a 72-hour deadline for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to pay the ransom, or the hostages would be killed, in an online video posted Tuesday.

Friday’s 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.

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.

___

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil in Cairo, and Kaori Hitomi and Ken Moritsugu in Tokyo contributed to this report.

The Huffington Post