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TOKYO -- Japan and other nations condemned with outrage
and horror on Sunday the beheading purportedly by the Islamic State
group of Kenji Goto, a journalist who sought through his coverage of
Syria to convey the plight of refugees, children and other victims of
war.
The failure to save Goto raised fears for
the life of a Jordanian fighter pilot also held hostage by the
extremists. Unlike earlier messages, an online video purporting to show
an Islamic State group militant beheading Goto, circulated via social
media late Saturday by militant sympathizers, did not mention the pilot.
Goto's slaying shocked this country, which up to now had not become directly embroiled in the fight against the militants.
"I
feel indignation over this immoral and heinous act of terrorism," Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters after convening an emergency Cabinet
meeting.
"When I think of the grief of his
family, I am left speechless," he said. "The government has been doing
its utmost in responding to win his release, and we are filled with deep
regret."
In light of threats from the Islamic
State group, the government ordered heightened security at airports and
at Japanese facilities overseas, such as embassies and schools,
government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told the BBC.
He
said it would be "inappropriate" to comment on the status of the
Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kaseasbeh. He was captured in December when
his F-16 crashed near the de facto capital of the Islamic State group,
which controls about a third of both Syria and neighboring Iraq in a
self-declared caliphate.
Jordan's government
spokesman, Mohammed al-Momani, also declined comment. Earlier this week,
Jordan offered to free an al-Qaida prisoner for the pilot, but demanded
and said it never got proof he was still alive.
Goto,
47, was a freelance journalist and father who braved hardship and peril
to convey the suffering caused by conflict and poverty.
"Kenji
has died, and my heart is broken. Facing such a tragic death, I'm just
speechless," Goto's mother Junko Ishido told BBC News reporters.
"I
was hoping Kenji might be able to come home," said Goto's brother,
Junichi Goto, in a separate interview. "I was hoping he would return and
thank everyone for his rescue, but that's impossible, and I'm bitterly
disappointed."
Japanese expressed shock and horror over Goto's killing.
Yukawa's father, Shoichi, said Goto was trying to rescue his son "only to suffer the worst possible outcome."
"I
just have no words. It's utterly heartbreaking," he told the BBC. "People
killing other people - it's so deplorable. How can this be happening?"
Abe
vowed not to give in to terrorism and said Japan will continue to
provide humanitarian aid to countries fighting the Islamic State
extremists.
The defense minister, Gen
Nakatani, said that the police agency had deemed the video of Goto's
killing "highly likely to be authentic."
According
to his friends and family, Goto traveled to Syria in late October to
try to save another hostage, Haruna Yukawa, who was captured by the
Islamic State group in August and shown as purportedly killed in an
earlier video.
The White House released a
statement in which President Barack Obama also condemned "the heinous
murder" and praised Goto's reporting, saying he "courageously sought to
convey the plight of the Syrian people to the outside world."
The
White House said that while it isn't confirming the authenticity of the
video itself, it has confirmed that Goto has been slain.
Saturday's
video, highlighted by militant sympathizers on social media sites, bore
the symbol of the Islamic State group's al-Furqan media arm.
Though
it could not be immediately independently verified by the BBC, it conformed to other beheading videos released by the
extremists, who now control about a third of both Syria and neighboring
Iraq in a self-declared caliphate.
In Jordan
late Saturday night, relatives and supporters of the pilot held a
candlelit vigil inside a family home in Karak, al-Kaseasbeh's hometown
in southern Jordan.
We "decided to hold this
protest to remind the Jordanian government of the issue of the
imprisoned pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh," said the pilot's brother Jawdat
al-Kaseasbeh, holding picture of Muath with a caption: "We are all
Muath."
Al-Kaseasbeh's uncle, Yassin Rawashda, told a BBC News reporter that the family just wants to be kept informed.
"We
want to know how the negotiations are going ... in a positive direction
or not. And we want the family to be (involved) in the course of
negotiations," he said.
In a purported online
message earlier this week, the militants threatened to kill the pilot if
the al-Qaida prisoner, 44-year-old Sajijda al-Rishawi, wasn't released
by sunset on Thursday. That deadline passed, leaving the families of the
pilot and the journalist waiting in agony.
Jordan
and Japan had reportedly conducted indirect negotiations with the
militants through Iraqi tribal leaders, but late on Friday Japan's
deputy foreign minister reported a deadlock in those efforts.
The
hostage drama began last week when the militants threatened to kill
Goto and Yukawa in 72 hours unless Japan paid $200 million.
Later,
the militants' demand shifted to seeking the release of al-Rishawi, who
is facing death by hanging in Jordan for her role in triple hotel
bombings in Amman in 2005. Sixty people were killed in those attacks,
the worst terror attack in Jordan's history.
Al-Rishawi has close family ties to the Iraq branch of al-Qaida, a precursor of the Islamic State group.
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