Islamic State Says It Has Executed Chinese and Norwegian Hostages
Islamic State said it had killed a Norwegian and a Chinese captive, showing what appeared to be pictures of the dead men under a banner reading “Executed” in the latest edition of its English language magazine.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has confirmed on Thursday that Chinese national Fan Jinghui had been kidnapped and murdered by militants of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group banned in Russian Federation.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has vowed justice after Fan’s killing and reaffirmed China’s commitment to fighting global terrorism.
Foreign Minister Boerge Brende added that the government had no grounds to doubt the photos that had been published.
Earlier this week, reports emerged that the ISIL terrorist group had executed one citizen each from China and Norway.
The state-run Beijing News said Fan was probably a former advertising executive who had once lived in a western suburb of Beijing, but that his company shut down in 2003. He revealed in a radio interview in 2001 that he once worked as an uncontracted production assistant for CCTV.
He added the government had made “all-out” efforts to rescue him.
“The Chinese side will continue to enhance counter-terrorism cooperation with the worldwide community and safeguard world peace and tranquility”, it said in a statement.
ISIL controls large areas of Iraq and Syria.
“The Norwegian government had declined to pay, with Prime Minister Erna Solberg saying paying would increase risks for other Norwegians”, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Xie said there are multiple reasons for that.
On Thursday morning, “Chinese hostage” was the sixth most searched term on Weibo, China’s Twitter, but evidence from Free Weibo, a website that captures deleted social media posts, shows many posts have been deleted.
In September, the two men were pictured in the online magazine wearing yellow jumpsuits with the words “FOR SALE” below their portraits.
A warning appeared beneath at the bottom of each page: “Note: This is a limited time offer”.