TOKYO -- The Japanese government has verified the identities of the two hostages held by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) after consulting with the victims' families, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said Wednesday, adding that Tokyo would "exert its utmost to secure the men's release." 
 
 Historically pacifist and heavily dependent on Mideast oil, contemporary Japan has reiterated that its aid to the Mideast nations and their allies battling ISIS was humanitarian in nature, and meant to promote the stability of the region. 
 
 "We have been aggressively contributing, for the sake of peace and to improve the welfare of the people of the Mideast," Suga said. "Japan's aid is absolutely not being used to kill Muslims, as claimed by these brutal criminals." 
 
 In a video released Tuesday, ISIS demanded $200 million in exchange for the lives of the two men, and accused Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe directly of donating "$100 million to kill our women and children, to destroy the homes of the Muslims ... and in an attempt to stop the expansion of the Islamic State, you have also donated another $100 million to train the (apostates)." 
 
 "We will not yield to terrorism, and there is no change to our position of contributing to campaigns against terror in international society," Suga said Wednesday, reiterating remarks made immediately after the video surfaced. 
 
 Japan has been at pains to emphasize that the aid announced in recent days is strictly non-military in nature. 
 
 The widely circulated Asahi Shimbun newspaper said the ransom demand was more than four-times the amount of money extorted by ISIS in exchange for hostages over the past year. 
 
 Japan's National Police Agency, meanwhile, said it was dispatching a counter-terrorism team, activated when Japanese citizens are abducted overseas, to Amman, Jordan. The government was also analyzing the hostage video itself -- shadows on the victims' faces and discrepancies in the way the wind is blowing their garments indicate the video may be doctored. 
 
 Japan is renowned for its low crime rate. Japanese police do not carry firearms and the self-defense forces are not considered an actual military. Its remote location has largely isolated it from the terrorism that has plagued Western countries in recent years, and naiveté and miscalculations by both of the hostages apparently played a role in their abduction. 
 
 "I was afraid something like this would happen eventually," Shintaro Kimoto, an acquaintance of hostage Haruna Yukawa, told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper. 
 
 Yukawa, despite having no experience or military background, set himself up as a private military contractor in January, 2014, telling Kimoto the venture would guard Japanese ships. 
 
 In April he went by himself to Syria, saying on his blog that he wanted to "record everything that happens in a war zone." 
 
 At the time, he was training with members of the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army rebels in northern Syria. 
 
 "I came to get experience for my military contracting," he said. There, he met journalist Kenji Goto, who warned him, "if you identify yourself as a military contractor in a combat area, you'll be marked as an enemy." 
 
 Yukawa returned to Japan. He expressed excitement over having had the chance to fire a gun -- something impossible in Japan, where strict laws forbid ordinary citizens from owning firearms. 
 
 Unable to sell his services to Japanese shipping companies, Yukawa decided there was business to be had bringing medicine and ambulances to the Free Syrian Army, and providing bodyguard service to journalists like Goto. 
 
 Kimoto said he told him the venture was too dangerous, to which Yukawa, a widower, replied, "I'm alone in the world, so even if I die, it doesn't matter." He returned to Syria in July. 
 
 In mid-August, a YouTube video appeared, showing Yukawa being interrogated, his head bleeding. 
 
 Swarmed by media in front of his home in Chiba city yesterday, Yukawa's father, Shoichi, said only: "My mind is confusion, I can't do interviews," and then he left. 
 
 Unlike Yukawa, whose life was a series of personal reverses, Kenji Goto was a widely respected journalist in Japan, who set up his TV production company, Independent Press, in 1996, to cover conflicts, refugees, poverty, AIDS, and children's education. He had traveled repeatedly to Syria and was a prime source of reports from that area in the Japanese language media. 
 
 Akira Ikegami, a leading journalist in Tokyo who had relied on Goto's expertise while producing a story on the Iraq war, praised him as a "veteran of combat reporting" and expressed shock over his abduction. 
 
 Goto, Ikegami told various Japanese media, "tried to get across the tragedy of conflict. I am worried about him." 
 
 Yet despite his experience working in war zones, Goto failed to heed warnings on his most recent trip. 
 
 A Syrian guide interviewed in southern Turkey by several Japanese TV networks described how Goto tried to hire him for a trip into ISIS-held territory to search for Yukawa and report on civilian life under the militants' control. 
 
 The guide took him from Kiris, Turkey, to the battlefront city of Aleppo in northern Syria, but refused to escort him to Raqqa, the de-facto capital of ISIS' territory, saying that foreign journalists were prime targets. 
 
 The guide said Goto felt his nationality would shield him from harm. 
 
 Goto's wife received an email, apparently from ISIS militants, demanding $17 million in ransom in December, according to Japanese broadcaster NHK. 
 
 ISIS' well-documented social-media savvy was evident, according to the Japanese edition of Huffington Post, in their use of Twitter. 
 
 In an effort to disseminate their video as far and fast as possible in Japan on Tuesday, the captors tweeted a link using unrelated Japanese-language hashtags that happened to be trending at the time: "Hitoshi Saito," a deceased judo champ; "coldest period of winter," and "snow crab," among others. 
 
 As the news began to generate tweets in Japan, key phrases in Japanese, like "236 million yen," (the ransom amount in Japanese currency) and "within 72 hours," were copied and pasted into new hashtags, ensuring the news' quick spread. ||||| TOKYO Japan said on Friday it was still trying to secure the release of two Japanese hostages held by Islamic State militants after a deadline to pay ransom for their release passed and there was no immediate word on their fate. 
 
 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's government considered whether planned legislative changes would give it the legal basis for a military strike on the Islamic State militants and concluded it did not, according to a briefing document reviewed by Reuters. 
 
 The capture of two Japanese citizens in Syria represents an "unacceptable act of terror," the document said. 
 
 But it concluded the situation would not meet the legal conditions for the dispatch of Japanese forces, whose activities abroad are constrained by the pacifist, post-war constitution, even under planned changes to the current interpretation of the charter. 
 
 In an online video released on Tuesday, a black-clad figure holding a knife stood between journalist Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa, threatening to kill them if Tokyo did not pay Islamic State $200 million within 72 hours. 
 
 Abe has said saving the men's lives is paramount but that Japan will not bow to terrorism. Japanese officials have declined to say if they would pay any ransom, a move that would put Tokyo at odds with close ally the United States. 
 
 "Despite the fact that the situation is severe, we are continuing to seek cooperation from all countries, tribal leaders and religious representatives who might have contacts with an aim to secure the early release of the two Japanese," chief government spokesman Yoshihide Suga told reporters. 
 
 Goto's mother pleaded for his release just hours before the deadline passed. 
 
 "My son Kenji is not an enemy of the people of the Islamic faith. I can only pray as a mother for his release," Junko Ishido told a packed news conference, choking back tears. "If I could offer my life I would plead that my son be released, it would be a small sacrifice on my part. 
 
 "He only went to rescue his friend. He has always looked out for weaker people, he was always helping weaker children than him," she added. 
 
 Abe has ordered his government to make every effort to secure their safe release, setting off a flurry of activity among Japanese diplomats.However, sources familiar with the matter said Japanese diplomats had told the families of the two captives prior to the video's release that no ransom would be paid. 
 
 The captor in the video, which resembles those showing previous Islamic State captives, said the ransom demand matched the $200 million in aid that Abe pledged to help countries fighting Islamist militants. 
 
 Japan in 1977 paid $6 million to Japanese Red Army hijackers in Dhaka, with then-Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda saying "the lives of hostages outweighs the earth". 
 
 The government hardened its official stance after the 1996 hostage taking at the Japanese ambassador's residence in Peru, when it refused to pay ransom. 
 
 HUMANITARIAN AID 
 
 Abe made the pledge during a multi-nation visit to the Middle East earlier this month. Islamic State militants have seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, and beheaded several Western captives. 
 
 Japan has stressed that its donation is for humanitarian aid, such as helping refugees, and insisted that it will not bow to terrorist threats. 
 
 In an address at Friday prayers at Tokyo's most prominent mosque, the Tokyo Camii and Turkish Culture Center, the imam, Muhammad Rashid Alas, called for the "immediate release of the two Japanese hostages," quoting from the Quran on the need to show mercy. 
 
 The center had earlier posted a statement saying Islamic State's actions are "totally against Islam and have a serious impact on Muslim communities all over the world and put Muslims in a precarious position". 
 
 Abe's handling of the hostage crisis - he must appear firm but not callous - will be a big test for the 60-year-old, but he appears to have few options. 
 
 Few Japanese are likely to blame Abe if the two captives are killed, but there could be questions raised over why he singled out countries battling Islamic State for the aid when it was known the group was holding two Japanese nationals. 
 
 "Just when they held hostages and considered what they should do about them, Mr. Abe offered something that would, in their (IS's) logic, raise the hurdle (for resolving the situation)," said Motohiro Ono, an opposition Democratic Party of Japan lawmaker who is a Middle East expert. 
 
 Yukawa, aged around 42 and who dreamed of becoming a military contractor, was captured in August outside the Syrian city of Aleppo. Goto, 47, a war correspondent with experience in Middle East hot spots, went to Syria in late October to try to help Yukawa. 
 
 (Writing by Linda Sieg and William Mallard; Additional reporting by Nobuhiro Kubo, Teppei Kasai, Tim Kelly, Elaine Lies and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan) ||||| Advertisement Continue reading the main story 
 
 TOKYO — Japanese officials said Thursday that they were trying every possible avenue to reach the Islamic State militants who have threatened to kill two Japanese hostages but had so far failed to make contact, with time running out on a deadline to pay for the men’s lives. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 The Japanese government has confirmed that the two men seen in a video released Tuesday, kneeling in orange jumpsuits as a masked, knife-wielding militant stands between them, are Kenji Goto, a journalist, and Haruna Yukawa, who has called himself a military contractor. In the video, the militant threatened to kill the men unless the Islamic State received $200 million within 72 hours, a deadline that would arrive Friday if the countdown began when the video was made public. 
 
 The crisis has tested the resolve of Japan’s hard-charging prime minister, Shinzo Abe, who has vowed to give long-passive Japan a more active role in global affairs. When the video surfaced, Mr. Abe was in the Middle East, where he had pledged $200 million in nonlethal aid to countries battling the Islamic State, which controls territory in Iraq and Syria. 
 
 In the video, the militant demanded a ransom equivalent to the aid package, accusing Japan of offering the money “to kill our women and children, to destroy the homes of Muslims.” Mr. Abe, who called an emergency cabinet meeting on Wednesday night after rushing back to Tokyo, ordered his ministers to use whatever diplomatic channels they could to win the captives’ release. 
 
 “This is a race against time, but the government will do everything it can,” Mr. Abe told reporters. But he said Japan would not back down on its pledge of nonlethal aid. 
 
 On Thursday, the top government spokesman, Yoshihide Suga, said Japan had yet to confirm whether the two men were still alive. He said Japan was trying to tell the militants that their demands were based on a “misunderstanding,” since the promised aid money would be used to help refugees and for other humanitarian purposes, not to support military action. 
 
 Japan is trying to convey this “to the nations involved as well as leaders of tribal and religious groups, using every means that we can,” Mr. Suga told reporters. “We are sending the message that contrary to what the criminals are saying, we are absolutely not trying to kill people in the Muslim world.” 
 
 He also said Japan had dispatched Yasuhide Nakayama, the No. 2 official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to Jordan’s capital, Amman, to lead Japan’s regional response to the crisis. 
 
 “We are in a tough spot, but we are doing our very utmost to win the quick release of the hostages,” he said. 
 
 In news conferences since the video was released, Mr. Suga has dodged questions about a ransom, leaving open the question of whether Japan is willing to pay for the two men’s safe return. Japan is known to have given in to such a demand at least once, when it paid $3 million in 1999 for the release of four mining experts held in Kyrgyzstan. 
 
 But Mr. Suga did insist that Japan “will not give in to terror, and will contribute to the international community’s efforts to deal with terror.” Mr. Abe has also vowed not to be intimidated. 
 
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 New details in Japanese news reports suggested that the government knew that a hostage situation was developing even before the video’s release. According to several major news outlets, Mr. Goto’s wife was first contacted by the Islamic State in November in an email saying the militants were holding her husband. 
 
 According to the reports, the emails did not demand a ransom until January, when she was asked to pay the equivalent of about $20 million. The reports said Mr. Goto’s wife had consulted with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs when her husband disappeared in October, and again after receiving the first ransom demand. 
 
 The capture of Mr. Yukawa became public in August, when the Islamic State posted a video online. This has led to criticism that the government failed to act when it may have had a realistic chance of securing the men’s release. 
 
 “If the investigating authorities failed to build a channel to the kidnappers over the last five months, what can they do in three days?” said Kosuke Tsuneoka, a freelance journalist with experience in war zones who was himself held by the Taliban in Afghanistan. “I think the situation now is bleak.”
– Japan says it's exercising every diplomatic channel in the wake of ISIS' video threat to kill two Japanese hostages, emphasizing that the funds it's contributing to the international effort against the group are "not aimed at killing Muslims … and that [ISIS] shouldn't harm the two Japanese men," per Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said yesterday that the country wouldn't abandon plans to provide the money, which he said is intended to provide food and medicine for people affected by the crisis, the Wall Street Journal reports. Suga responded to questions about whether a $200 million ransom would be paid by saying that Japan wouldn't submit to terrorists. But Japan will "exert its utmost to secure the men's release," he said. Japan is also sending a counterterror team to Jordan as it investigates the video, CBS News reports. Hostage Haruna Yukawa sought to become a military contractor without any experience in the field, CBS notes, via Japan's Asahi Shimbun. When a friend warned him about working in Syria, he said he was "alone in the world, so even if I die, it doesn't matter." Fellow hostage Kenji Goto, a journalist, made it his life's work "to cover children in conflict-torn regions with a hope to convey to the world the harsh realities that those marginalized children are facing," a friend tells Asahi Shimbun. For more on their story, click here.