IS-LINKED MILITANTS SAY COUNTDOWN FOR JAPAN'S HOSTAGES BEGAN

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

BY MARI YAMAGUCHI AND ELAINE KURTENBACH

TOKYO (AP) -- Militants affiliated with the Islamic State group have posted an online warning that the "countdown has begun" for the group to kill a pair of Japanese hostages.

The posting which appeared Friday shows a clock counting down to zero along with gruesome images of other hostages who have been beheaded by the Islamic State group.

The militant group gave Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe a 72-hour deadline - which expired Friday - to pay a $200 million ransom for the two hostages. The posting on a forum popular among Islamic State militants and sympathizers did not show any images of the Japanese hostages.

In the past the website has posted Islamic State group videos very quickly, sometimes before anyone else. Nippon Television Network first reported the message in Japan.

FULL story at link.



CORRECTS NAME TO KENJI Junko Ishido, mother of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto who was taken hostage by the Islamic State group, reacts during a press conference in Tokyo, Friday, Jan. 23, 2015. Ishido said she was astonished and angered to learn from her daughter-in-law that Goto had left less than two weeks after his child was born, in October, to go to Syria to try to rescue the other hostage, 42-year-old Haruna Yukawa. (AP Photo/Koji Sasahara)

Read more: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_JAPAN_ISLAMIC_STATE?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-01-23-06-08-20

[DetlefK]

1. Seriously? $100 million per hostage? To be paid to a terrorist organization?

And they really thought they would get this?

$1 million or $10 million per hostage would have been realistic. Japan could have downplayed that. But $100 million is so over-the-top that it would automatically backfire if Japan agrees to pay this.

[Tobin S.]

2. I doubt they were expecting payment.

The idea has probably been to kill them from the get-go and get as much publicity out of the situation as possible.

[freshwest]

3. Most likely already dead. They're the William Hicks of this century.

Ayn Rand, Hugely Popular Author and Inspiration to Right-Wing Leaders, Was a Big Admirer of Serial Killer

By Mark Ames / AlterNet
February 25, 2010

Her works are treated as gospel by right-wing powerhouses like Alan Greenspan and Clarence Thomas, but Ayn Rand found early inspiration in 1920's murderer William Hickman...

http://www.alternet.org/story/145819/ayn_rand%2C_hugely_popular_author_and_inspiration_to_right-wing_leaders%2C_was_a_big_admirer_of_serial_killer

Definitely not to be read by the squeamish, but her writings are central to the views of Paul Ryan and Rand Paul as well. We should not be surprised by what they intend to do with social security or any other protection for those they consider less than worthy to live - just not in the direct way ISIS does - but by applying 'the death of a thousand cuts.' Less attention, but same intention. IMO.

Paul Ryan’s Guru Ayn Rand Worshipped a Serial Killer Who Kidnapped and Dismembered Little Girls

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021118602