ISIL threatens to kill Japan hostage, Jordan pilot in 24 hours

BEIRUT - Agence France-Presse

People look at a large TV screen in Tokyo on January 27, 2015 showing news reports about Japanese men Kenji Goto who has been kidnapped by the Islamic State group. AFP Photo

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) threatened Jan. 27 to kill a Japanese journalist and a Jordanian pilot within 24 hours unless Amman frees a jailed female militant.
      
A video released on jihadist websites shows a picture of Japanese hostage Kenji Goto holding a photograph of captured Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh.
      
A voiceover, purportedly by Goto, warns that Jordan is blocking the Japanese journalist's release by failing to free Sajida al-Rishawi, a would-be suicide bomber on death row since 2006.
      
The statement says Goto and Kassasbeh will be killed within 24 hours if Rishawi is not freed, and urges the Japanese government to put pressure on Jordan.
      
It follows a video released last week in which the group claimed to have beheaded another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa, and said Goto would be killed next if Rishawi was not freed.
     
Rishawi was sentenced to death by a Jordanian court in September 2006 in connection with triple hotel bomb attacks in Amman the previous year that killed 60 people.