The post shows an image of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto holding a picture that appears to be of Moaz al-Kassasbeh, the pilot captured by ISIS last month after his jet crashed in Syria.
Over the image, a voice purporting to be that of Goto repeats an earlier proposal that he will go free if Jordan releases Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman on death row in Jordan for her role in deadly bombings in 2005.
But the latest message says the lives of both Goto and al-Kassasbeh are at stake if the swap doesn’t taken place before the deadline.
CNN couldn’t independently verify the authenticity of Tuesday’s message, which was posted to YouTube and distributed on social media by known ISIS supporters. The Japanese government said there was no evidence so far that it wasn’t Goto speaking in the video.
Families’ anguish
Goto’s mother on Wednesday begged Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to secure her son’s release.
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The two Japanese men are believed to have become friends after meeting in Syria earlier in 2014.
Yukawa, 42, has been described as a lost soul who went to the war-torn Middle Eastern country with dreams of building a private security business. He had previously suffered a series of setbacks, including the death of his wife and the loss of his home.
Goto, 47, is reported to have three children, two of them with his current wife.
ISIS says it captured al-Kassasbeh, the Jordanian pilot, after he ejected from his F-16 jet last month near Raqqa, the militant group’s de-facto capital in Syria.
CNN’s Jason Hanna, Yoko Wakatsuki, Kareem Khadder, Mohammed Tawfeeq, Will Ripley and Junko Ogura contributed to this report.
