Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed strong shock and disbelief over the ISIS video purporting to kill 42-year-old Haruna Yukawa, one of the two Japanese hostages in the captivity of Islamic State militants. Yukawa was taken hostage in Syria last year.
Although Japanese security analysts are still reviewing the killing video of Yukawa to determine its authenticity, Shinzo Abe said “I am left speechless. We strongly and totally criticize such acts.” He further offered his condolences to the family of Yukawa, and called for the immediate release of journalist Kenji Goto, the second hostage.
The video contained a message asking that the remaining hostage, Goto, will be released after Japan released another prisoner in a prisoner-swap exchange. But Abe has failed to comment on this.
“If I am ever reunited with him, I just want to give him a big hug,” said Yukawa’s father, Shoichi, when a small group of journalists invited into his house spoke with him. Shoichi said that “deep in his heart” he finds it difficult to believe that his son had truly been killed as purported by the said video.
President Obama also condemned the “brutal murder” and reaffirmed the readiness of the United States to stand by Japan in the call for Goto’s release. Having seen the video, the US National Security Council said it is working to verify its authenticity. The CIA also confirms reviewing the video.
“The United States strongly condemns (Islamic State’s) actions, and we call for the immediate release of all the remaining hostages,” said agency spokesman Patrick Ventrell.
Yoshihide Suga, the spokesman for the Japanese government stated that intelligence agencies are still analyzing the audio content of the video, and has no reason to disbelief its authenticity at this moment.
However, a number of posters on the Islamic State-affiliated website stated the video was fake and another stated that the message for only for Goto’s family. Another militant on the site noted that the video could not have been made by al-Furqan, the IS’s media arm, because it did not bear the group’s logo – and the poster released a number of past videos of beheadings and killings that had the group’s logo.
The militants on the site posted their comments using pseudonyms so there is no way intelligence analysts could confirm their identities or the genuineness of their points.