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. ||||| 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.” ||||| (CNN) He ventured to Syria to tell the stories of lives torn apart by war. 
 
 But in doing so, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto suffered his own gruesome fate -- apparently becoming the latest foreigner to be decapitated by ISIS. 
 
 A newly distributed video from ISIS appears to show the beheaded body of Goto. It came one week after a video surfaced showing him holding a photo of what appeared to be the corpse of his fellow Japanese captive, Haruna Yukawa. 
 
 Just like ISIS' previous beheading videos, the 67-second footage released Saturday was issued by the terror group's media wing, Al Furqan Media. The video cannot be authenticated by CNN. 
 
 And now, Japan finds itself more deeply embroiled in the global fight against ISIS. 
 
 "We are deeply saddened by this despicable and horrendous act of terrorism, and we denounce it in the strongest terms," Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said, according to broadcaster NHK. "To the terrorists, we will never, never forgive them for this act." 
 
 Kenji Goto in Aleppo, Syria, on October 24, 2014. 
 
 The members of the United Nations Security Council said in a statement that they strongly condemned Goto's "heinous and cowardly murder," adding that those responsible should be held accountable. 
 
 "This crime is, yet again, a tragic reminder of the increasing dangers journalists and others face every day in Syria. It also once again demonstrates the brutality of (ISIS), which is responsible for thousands of abuses against the Syrian and Iraqi people," the Security Council said. 
 
 U.S. President Barack Obama said the United States stands in solidarity with Japan "in denouncing this barbaric act." 
 
 "We applaud Japan's steadfast commitment to advancing peace and prosperity in the Middle East and globally, including its generous assistance for innocent people affected by the conflicts in the region," Obama said in a statement. 
 
 Unlike the United States, Britain and other allies, Japan is not involved in the military campaign against ISIS. But Japan has been providing humanitarian aid in the Middle East as ISIS continues its bloody quest to solidify an Islamic state across parts of Iraq and Syria. 
 
 And Japan's efforts to provide humanitarian aid won't stop, one top official said Sunday. 
 
 "We would like to expand our support for refugees," Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said. "We are surely going to have necessary support in terms of not yielding to terrorism." 
 
 'Let the nightmare for Japan begin' 
 
 The ISIS video opens with a black slate that reads, "A Message to Japan." It then shows a kneeling Goto . The man known as "Jihadi John" is standing behind him. 
 
 The terrorist speaks in English while holding a knife in his left hand. 
 
 "Abe, because of your reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war, this knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found," the man says. "So let the nightmare for Japan begin." 
 
 The video cuts to black as the militant puts the knife to Goto's throat. It then shows the apparent result of the decapitation. It's not clear who conducted the apparent killing. 
 
 The knife-wielding masked man with a London accent has been nicknamed "Jihadi John." He has appeared in at least six videos with hostages and has overseen the beheadings of other captives. 
 
 The race to save Goto's life 
 
 Goto, 47, left Japan last fall, when his younger daughter was 3 weeks old. His wife, Rinko, first heard from his captors December 2. 
 
 On January 20, an ISIS video posted to social media showed Goto and Yukawa dressed in orange, kneeling in front of a masked man dressed in black. 
 
 In that video, the ISIS militant issued a $200 million ransom demand to the Japanese government in order to free the Japanese men within 72 hours. That's the same amount of money Abe recently pledged for those "contending" with ISIS. 
 
 Days later, a new message surfaced featuring what appeared to be the corpse of Yukawa. And Goto would also be killed, the new message claimed, unless Jordan freed prisoner and convicted terrorist Sajida al-Rishawi. 
 
 Suga said Japan tried hard to save both Yukawa and Goto. 
 
 "Since the beginning of the incident, we have been trying to use all kind of means and to do our best to save their lives by using our diplomatic route, as much as possible," Suga said Sunday. 
 
 When asked whether Japan negotiated over the ransom, Suga said no. 
 
 Jordan also said it did everything it could to free Goto in cooperation with Japan, government spokesman Mohammed Al-Momani told Jordan's official Petra news agency Sunday. 
 
 But that country is still grappling with its own hostage situation. 
 
 Jordanian pilot's fate unclear 
 
 Among its web of threats, ISIS said it would kill Jordanian military pilot captured in Syria if Jordan doesn't release convicted terrorist al-Rishawi. 
 
 But pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh's fate remains unclear. He was not mentioned in the latest video featuring Goto. 
 
 Jordan will continue trying to secure the release of the pilot, Al-Momani told Petra on Sunday. But he said officials are still seeking "proof of life" evidence that al-Kasasbeh is alive. 
 
 No answers 
 
 Goto, a veteran journalist, had said he felt compelled to document the stories of war, even if it meant going to some of the most dangerous places in the world. 
 
 "Syrian people (have been) suffering for three years and a half. It's enough," he said in a video shot in October. "So I would like to get the story of what ISIS wants to do." 
 
 Goto's mother, Junko Ishido, said her son wanted to help create a world free of wars. 
 
 "I'm shedding tears of sorrow, I just can't think of any words to say," she said, according to NHK. "But I don't want this sorrow to create a chain of hatred." 
 
 Rinko praised her husband's work in a statement released Sunday. 
 
 "While feeling a great personal loss, I remain extremely proud of my husband, who reported the plight of people in conflict areas like Iraq, Somalia and Syria," she said. "It was his passion to highlight the effects on ordinary people, especially through the eyes of children, and to inform the rest of us of the tragedies of war." 
 
 But now, she must raise the couple's two girls without their father. 
 
 The 2-year-old daughter has been asking when her dad will come home.
– 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.