TOKYO -- The Japanese government expressed anger at an image released Saturday that purported to show the decapitated body of one of two Japanese hostages captured by Islamic State militants.
The kidnappers had threatened to kill the men if a Friday deadline passed for a $200 million ransom from Japan.
The prime minister, Shinzo Abe, said that while experts were still analyzing the photo, it had "a high chance of being real." Speaking on a television debate show today, Abe condemned the apparent killing of Haruna Yukawa as an "outrageous and unforgivable act of violence," and demanded the immediate release of Kenji Goto, the other hostage.
Yukawa's father, Shoichi, said today that he hoped "deep in his heart" that the news of his son's killing was not true.
"If I am ever reunited with him, I just want to give him a big hug," he said.
SITE Intelligence, a well-known organization that tracks jihadist propaganda, said that it believed the video was authentic. But Al Furqan, a media arm of the Islamic State that has in the past posted videos of the group's beheadings, had not released any video or message confirming the killing by midday Saturday.
A statement by SITE said the video was posted on Twitter accounts linked to the Islamic State extremist group, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The statement said a still image of Goto in shackles shows him holding a photo of a beheaded man, which it said was Yukawa. The video that included the still image was removed from YouTube early Saturday.
President Barack Obama issued a statement saying the "United States strongly condemns the brutal murder of Japanese citizen Haruna Yukawa by the terrorist group ISIL." An audio message that accompanied the video released Saturday said the dead hostage was Yukawa, 42, who has been described as an adventurer.
Obama said in his statement that the United States will stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Japan and called for the immediate release of the second Japanese hostage. Obama's statement was issued at Ramstein Air Base in Germany as the president was en route to India for a visit.
American officials also appear close to concluding the video was real. Brian Hale, a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, said in an email Saturday night that "the U.S. intelligence community has no reason to doubt the authenticity of the video."
The other hostage, Goto, 47, a journalist, appeared to be alive in the video. Yukawa would be the first Japanese person to be killed by the Islamic State, which has established a self-proclaimed caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq financed partly by ransom payments for kidnapped foreigners.
The two men's fate has become a fixation in Japan in recent days and a major challenge for Abe. Political analysts have said the killing might turn Japan's still pacifist public against Abe's efforts to give the nation a more active role in global affairs. The size of the ransom demand for the two hostages matched the amount of aid that Abe pledged last weekend to help with refugee relief and other nonlethal efforts by nations in the Middle East to deal with the Islamic State.
As he let the ransom deadline pass, apparently without paying the money, Abe had vowed that Japan would not be intimidated. After the image of the corpse appeared Saturday, a grim-faced Abe rushed to the prime minister's office to oversee this latest twist to the hostage crisis that began Tuesday, when a video appeared online showing the hostages kneeling as a knife-wielding militant threatened to kill them.
Abe held an emergency meeting of his ministers Saturday, during which he said he directed them to use every possible avenue to free Goto.
"I feel strong outrage," Abe told reporters after the meeting. "The Japanese government will not give in to terrorism and will continue to contribute to the peace and stability of the international community and the world."
Japanese diplomats left Syria as the civil war there escalated, compounding the difficulty of reaching the militants holding the hostages.
Abe spoke by phone with Jordanian King Abdullah II on Saturday, the state-run Petra news agency reported, without elaborating on what they discussed. He also called the two hostages' families.
In the three-minute audio recording released Saturday, the voice of a man who claimed to be Goto said Yukawa had been "slaughtered" and blamed Abe's failure to pay the ransom. The audio is addressed to Goto's wife, telling her that the Islamic State was now demanding the release of a woman imprisoned in Jordan, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi, for her part in a suicide bomb attack there in 2005.
"They no longer want money," the voice says in accented English. "You bring them their sister from the Jordanian regime, and I will be released immediately. Me for her. Don't let these be my last words you ever hear. Don't let Abe also kill me."
Goto's mother, Junko Ishido, told Japanese public broadcaster NHK in a televised interview that in the purported message her son, "seemed to be taking seriously what may be happening to him as well."
But Ishido also was skeptical about the voice claiming to be Goto. "Kenji's English is very good. He should sound more fluent," she said.
In the audio, the voice says he is Kenji Goto Jogo, but it remained unclear late Saturday why that was different from the name given by the Japanese government and his own website.
The attack in Jordan in November 2005 -- a triple bombing of hotels in Jordan's capital, Amman -- killed 57 people. Al-Rishawi's husband blew himself up in a wedding hall, but her suicide belt failed to detonate.
Al-Rishawi is Iraqi, and her family comes from a prominent tribe in Anbar province, where in 2005 al-Qaida in Iraq was entrenched and where the Islamic State holds sway today.
The Islamic State has beheaded three Americans and two Britons in recent months and showcased the killings via Internet video postings. It may have some leverage since it also holds a Jordanian air force pilot whose plane went down over Syria on a bombing mission.
On Saturday, Japanese officials said that they still had not reached the kidnappers or confirmed their location despite days of what they described as frantic efforts to do so. Japanese officials never specified whether they were willing to pay any ransom to the Islamic State. Japan paid to free kidnapped citizens in at least one previous case, in 1999, spending $3 million to secure the release of four mining experts held in Kyrgyzstan.
"This action is an unforgivable act of violence that leaves us at a loss for words, and we condemn it," said the top Japanese government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga. "We strongly urge that the remaining hostage, Mr. Goto, not be harmed and be immediately released."
Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said he planned to issue through its embassies around the world a safety warning to all Japanese citizens traveling outside the country.
Amateur videos have appeared online calling for the release of the hostages. Some show people holding up signs saying, "I am Kenji," echoing the "I am Charlie" rallying cry that spread in France after the terror attack on the Charlie Hebdo satirical newspaper. Goto is a freelance journalist with experience covering wars and humanitarian crises whose photos have appeared on the front pages of many Japanese newspapers.
Yukawa went to the region as he sought to reinvent himself as a soldier of fortune after a failed business career, a suicide attempt and the death of his wife, he wrote on his personal blog in April. He returned to Syria in July and was captured by the Islamic State group within weeks of his arrival. The group released a video in August showing a bloodied Yukawa being interrogated.
His capture prompted Goto, a devout Christian, to head to the northern Syrian city of Aleppo seeking his release, according to Kyodo news agency. Goto ended up a hostage facing the same death sentence, after leaving a video message in which he said his fate was his own responsibility.
"America has known this pain and horror ourselves, and we stand with Japan not just in sadness, but in solidarity and strength," U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said in a statement. "We grieve with Haruna Yukawa's family and loved ones, and with all the people of Japan."
Information for this article was contributed by Martin Fackler, Rukmini Callimachi, Rod Nordland, Anne Barnard, Mohammad Ghannam, Hwaida Saad, Hisako Ueno, Eric Schmitt, Emma G. Fitzsimmons and Rick Gladstone of The New York Times; by Mari Yamaguchi, Elaine Kurtenbach, Maamoun Youssef, Kaori Hitomi, Yuri Kageyama, Ken Moritsugu and Julie Pace of The Associated Press; and by Isabel Reynolds, Alexis Leondis, Gearoid Reidy, Maiko Takahashi and Sangwon Yoon of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 01/25/2015