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Japanese hostage reportedly beheaded

Journalist Kenji Goto was shown in a video that Islamic State extremists released.

A candlelight vigil is held in Karak, Jordan, for Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a pilot captured by the Islamic State militants when his fighter jet went down over Syria in December.
A candlelight vigil is held in Karak, Jordan, for Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, a pilot captured by the Islamic State militants when his fighter jet went down over Syria in December.Read moreNASSER NASSER / AP
    by Karin Laub, Associated Press, Inquirer
    Published 

AMMAN, Jordan - An online video released Saturday night purported to show an Islamic State group militant beheading Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, ending days of negotiations by diplomats to save the man.

The video, released on militant websites and highlighted by militant sympathizers on social media sites, bore the symbol of the Islamic State group's al-Furqan media arm.

Though the Associated Press could not immediately independently verify the video, it conformed to other beheading videos released by the extremists, who now control a third of Syria and neighboring Iraq in their self-declared caliphate.

The video, called "A Message to the Government of Japan," featured a man who looked and sounded like the militant with a British accent who has taken part in other beheading videos of the Islamic State group. Goto, kneeling in an orange prison jumpsuit, said nothing in the roughly one-minute video.

"Abe," the man says in the video, referring to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, "because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this man will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found. So let the nightmare for Japan begin."

U.S. officials were trying to authenticate the video.

Bernadette Meehan, spokeswoman for the White House National Security Council, using an alternative acronym for the extremist group, said, "The United States strongly condemns ISIL's actions and we call for the immediate release of all the remaining hostages. We stand in solidarity with our ally Japan."

Goto was captured in October after traveling to Syria to try to win the release of a countryman, Haruna Yukawa.

Yukawa reportedly was killed previously, though authorities have yet to authenticate the video claiming that.

Saturday's video made no mention of another hostage, Jordanian pilot Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, who was captured after his fighter plane went down in December over an Islamic State-controlled area of Syria.