UNSC
The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has denounced the recent beheading of a Japanese hostage by the Takfiri ISIL terrorists. The 15 members of the security body, in a declaration issued on Sunday, slammed the terror group’s “brutality” after the apparent murder of security contractor Haruna Yukawa. In a video, which emerged on the internet on Saturday, Japanese freelance journalist Kenji Goto holds the photo of a dead body allegedly belonging to Yukawa. “The Security Council… strongly condemned the heinous and cowardly act,” the UNSC statement read, adding, “This crime is, yet again, a tragic reminder of the increasing dangers people face every day in Syria, including journalists.” The Security Council further said the ISIL is responsible for “thousands of abuses against the Syrian and Iraqi people,” and stressed that those behind “these reprehensible acts of terrorism” must be brought to justice. The statement called for the immediate release of Goto as well as all the hostages still held captive by the ISIL, the al-Nusra Front, “and all other individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with Al-Qaeda.” The ISIL extremist group has decapitated five Western hostages since August 2014. In the Saturday footage, which was later removed from You Tube, Goto says that the ISIL wants him swapped for a female member of the terror group who is thought to be behind an attack on a hotel in Jordan in 2005 and is on the death row in Jordanian custody. The ISIL had previously given Japan’s government a 72-hour deadline to pay a 200-million dollar ransom for releasing the captives. The deadline ended on Friday, after which the militants posted an online warning saying the “countdown has begun” for the group to kill the two Japanese hostages. The terror group on Sunday claimed on its Al-Bayan radio that it “carried out its threat” and executed Yukawa “after the expiry of the deadline given.” “The second hostage is calling on his relatives to put pressure on the (Japanese) government for the release of our sister Sajida al-Rishawi, held in the jails of the oppressors in Jordan, in exchange for his release,” the terrorists added. The ISIL extremists have been engaged in crimes against humanity in the areas under their control in Iraq and Syria. They have terrorized and killed people of all communities, including Shias, Sunnis, Kurds, and Christians. press tv. Mon Jan 26, 2015 8:24AM
