2 Hostages in Danger of Decapitation Due to Failure of Japan Government to Contact ISIS

Jan 23, 2015 04:11 AM EST

(Photo : Reuters) The militant Islamic State group posts an online video purporting to show two Japanese hostages and threatening to kill them unless it received $200 million in ransom.

The hours of Japanese hostages Kenji Goto and Haruna Yakagawa are fast ticking, and the two are in danger of becoming the next decapitation victims of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), if the jihadists would fulfill their threat to behead the two.

The Telegraph reports that the Japanese government has so far failed to contact the ISIS on how it will pay the $200 million ransom to spare the lives of the journalist and war contractor.

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The deadline for payment of the ransom is on Friday, at 3 p.m., if ISIS would be strict and insist on not extending the 72-hour deadline.

Tokyo has created a crisis management team from the Japanese embassy in Jordan to get in touch with ISIS using intermediaries, but it has not been successful.

Japanese Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said the team has not learned anything about the state of the two captives, whom it insisted, the government wants to save.

Suga clarified that the ISIS misinterpreted its $200 million offer on Saturday of assistance to the Middle East, which he said would be used to help refugees displaced by the war in the region and not meant for battling the ISIS.

"We wish not to fight against the world of Islam: we want to help the more than ten million refugees in the region. This is humanitarian and non-military support," Suga stressed.

"We want them to understand, and free the hostages immediately," he added.

Experts on Middle East affairs believe that the real purpose of ISIS is not to gain financially via ransom payment but to incite fear among Japanese.

As the deadline lapsed, the mother of Goto appealed for her son's release.

"My son Kenji is not an enemy of the people of the Islamic faith. I can only pray as a mother for his release," Junko Ishido said at a news conference.

"If I can offer my life I would plead that my son be released, it would be a small sacrifice on my part," she added.

Meanwhile, Muhammad Rashid Alas, an imam, called for the release of the two hostages in a sermon at the Tokyo Camii and Turkish Culture Center, citing that the Quran commands Islam followers to show mercy.