Kenji Goto purportedly killed in online video, Islamic State militants said on Saturday they had beheaded a second Japanese hostage after the failure of international efforts to secure his release through a prisoner swap.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELQIwTzFDMY
The video, released on militant websites and highlighted by militant sympathizers on social media sites, bore the symbol of ISIS’ al-Furqan media arm.
President Obama’s National Security Council said in a statement that it was working to confirm the video’s authenticity.
“The United States strongly condemns ISIL’s actions, and we call for the immediate release of all remaining hostages,” spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said, using a different name for ISIS.
The video conformed to other beheading videos released by the extremists, who now control a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq in its self-declared caliphate.
The video, called “A Message to the Government of Japan,” featured a militant who looked and sounded like a militant with a British accent who has taken part in other beheading ISIS videos. Goto, kneeling in an orange prison jumpsuit, said nothing in the roughly one-minute-long video.
Agencies/Canadajournal