China strongly condemns Islamic State killing of hostage

Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday strongly condemned IS group for killing a Chinese national and expressed his deep sympathy to the victim’s family, (Xinhua) reported.

Beijing also has been stepping-up anti-terrorism cooperation with other nations, including Turkey, from where most ISIS foreign recruits – allegedly including a few from China – cross the border into Syria.

“We have so far no reason to doubt the content” of the pictures, Prime Minister Erna Solberg told a news conference.

It remains unclear how the two were abducted, although the Journal reports, Grimsgaard-Ofstad may have been in Syria working as an aspiring freelance journalist of sorts.

The militants announced the two men’s capture in a previous issue of Dabiq, which showed them in yellow jumpsuits, but gave no detail about their capture.

It’s not known how Fan was captured by the Islamic State group or whether he was abducted in Iraq, Syria, or elsewhere.

There are “published photos that indicate that the hostage Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad has been executed”.

China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Thursday that the government had made “all-out efforts” to rescue Fan.

“Terrorism is the common enemy of mankind”.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group says it has killed one Norwegian and one Chinese captive.

Worldwide terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna of the S. Rajaratnam School of global Studies said that China is likely to stick to its long-held principle of non-interference in another country’s affairs. And China’s foreign ministry acknowledged in September that IS was probably holding one of its citizens. “The Chinese government opposes all forms of terrorism and… will continue to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation with the worldwide community and safeguard world peace and tranquility”.

It was not clear why Fan was in the region when he was seized, though he was believed to be there on his own, according to media reports.

The magazine also carried a photo of what it said was the improvised bomb that brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board.

Chinese construction companies are involved in many major building projects overseas and are willing to go to many unstable places in the Middle East and Africa where other worldwide companies decline to go.