The Islamic State group’s threat to kill Japanese hostages Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa has been hijacked by an online campaign that mocks the organization’s videos and social media skills.
Due to charges that the Sunni radical terror group doctors its beheading videos and its use of unrelated Japanese Twitter hashtags to promote its cause, users are now using Photoshop and similar programs to belittle the terrorist organization.
The Islamic Group seeks $200 million to keep Messrs. Kenji, a journalist, and Haruna, a security consultant, alive. In order to draw attention to its 72-hour deadline, the terror group used Japanese scripts for “queen crab” (Zuwaigani) and another associated with coldest day of the year, (Daikan) on Twitter, The Japanese Times reported Wednesday.
The gaming website kotaku compiled a collection of some of the more bizarre efforts. In one, “Jihad John” stands with a plant coming out of his head. Others include Islamic State members surrounded by anime characters, or their hostages with robotic fish heads.
A Reuters interview on Wednesday suggests that Japanese Twitter users are correct with their charges of video manipulation. Veryan Khan of the Florida-based Terrorism Research and Analysis Consortium told the news service that the most recent ransom video has inconsistent shadows and wind.
“Well the wind’s blowing inconsistently. […] To the hostage on the left hand side it’s blowing very consistently on his shirt and only erratically blowing on the other person’s shirt, so it almost appears as if there’s a fan coming in one direction,” Ms. Khan said, Reuters reported.
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• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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