Japan Says Efforts to Contact Islamic State About Hostages Have Failed

TOKYO — Officials here said Thursday that they were trying every possible avenue to reach the Islamic State militants who have threatened to kill two Japanese hostages but had so far failed to make contact, with time running out on a deadline to pay for the men’s lives.

The Japanese government has confirmed that the two men seen in a video released Tuesday, kneeling in orange jumpsuits as a masked, knife-wielding militant stands between them, were Kenji Goto, a journalist, and Haruna Yukawa, who has called himself a military contractor. In the video, the militant threatened to kill the men unless the Islamic State received $200 million within 72 hours, a deadline that would arrive Friday if the countdown began when the video was made public.

New details in Japanese news reports suggested that the government may have known a hostage situation was developing even before the video’s release. According to several major news outlets, Mr. Goto’s wife was first contacted by the Islamic State in November with an email saying the militants were holding her husband.

According to the reports, the emails did not demand a ransom until January, when she was asked to pay the equivalent of about $20 million. The reports said Mr. Goto’s wife had consulted with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when her husband disappeared in October, and again after receiving the first ransom demand.

The New York Times