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Islamic militants released a video purportedly showing the beheading of Goto, according to SITE Intel Group, which monitors jihadist social media. Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said at a Sunday morning press briefing that it’s highly probably the video was the work of Islamic State and that Goto was the person shown being killed.

“I am greatly angered by this vile act of terrorism,” Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told reporters at his official residence in Tokyo earlier in the morning. “We cannot forgive the terrorists and we will work with the international community to have them atone for their crimes.”

The extremists, who had pledged to kill Goto and Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasassbeh unless Jordan released a failed suicide bomber, also used the video to further threaten Japan with “carnage wherever your people are found” because of Abe’s offer of humanitarian aid to victims of the fighting in Syria and Iraq. “Let the nightmare for Japan begin,” a militant says in the video’s voiceover.

Increase Aid

Japan will further increase its humanitarian aid to the region, Abe said at the morning press briefing.

The report of Goto’s killing came a week after a video purportedly showed the execution of another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa, a self-styled security consultant who had disappeared after traveling to Syria in July.

“I am in no state to choose my words,” Goto’s mother, Junko Ishido, told Kyodo news. “I want them to understand my son’s generosity and courage.”

There was no immediate report on the status of al- Kasassbeh, who was captured in Syria last month after his plane crashed on a bombing run against Islamic State. The video didn’t mention the pilot, said SITE, which is based in Bethesda, Maryland.

U.S. President Barack Obama condemned the “heinous murder” of Goto, in an e-mailed statement. “Our thoughts are with Mr. Goto’s family and loved ones,” Obama said, noting that in his reporting Goto “courageously sought to convey the plight of the Syrian people to the outside world.”

Japan will make every effort to eradicate terrorism, Suga told reporters at a press briefing. He pledged to boost humanitarian aid to refugees in the Mideast and said Japan would stop short of using its Self-Defense Forces to provide logistical support in the fight against Islamic State. Japan also won’t join air attacks against the terrorist group, he said.

‘Stand in Solidarity’

“We stand today in solidarity with Prime Minister Abe and the Japanese people in denouncing this barbaric act,” Obama said in his statement.

Goto, an experienced war correspondent, was captured by Islamic State after traveling to Syria in October.

Abe’s government refused to meet the group’s initial demands of a $200 million ransom for the men. The sum matched the pledge of humanitarian aid that Abe offered days earlier to nations dealing with Islamic State, an offer the new video calls a “reckless decision to take part in an unwinnable war.”

Militants holding Goto dropped their ransom demand after claiming to have slain Yukawa, calling instead for the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman on death row in Jordan for her part in attacks in 2005 on three hotels in Amman, where her husband acted as a suicide bomber.

A video released three days later displayed a picture of Goto holding a photograph of al-Kasassbeh, with a voiceover urging Japan to pressure Jordan to complete the prisoner exchange within 24 hours or the group would kill the two men.

That deadline was later extended until sunset in Mosul on Jan. 29. There would be no move to free al-Rishawi without proof that al-Kasassbeh was alive, Jordan’s Minister of State for Media Affairs Mohammad Momani said shortly before the deadline passed.

Suga said today there had been no word on the pilot’s fate.

--With assistance from Maiko Takahashi and Keiko Ujikane in Tokyo.