Over the weekend, the group released a video showing the apparent beheading of the journalist Kenji Goto, who was captured when he went to Syria last October in a bid to find Haruna Yukawa, a Japanese adventurer who disappeared there in August. A video showing a still image of Mr. Yukawa beheaded was released by the group on Jan. 24.
Beginning on Jan. 20, Mr. Goto was forced by his captors to plead for his life, directing those entreaties at Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. Similarly heart-rending messages were sent from his wife and mother in his final days.
In Mr. Goto’s apparent last moments, the Islamic State’s executioner, known as Jihadi John for his British-accented English, who appears in many of the beheading videos, taunted Mr. Abe: “This knife will not only slaughter Kenji, but will also carry on and cause carnage wherever your people are found.”
Mr. Abe responded that Japan “will cooperate with the international community and make the terrorists pay the price.” He added, “I’m outraged by the despicable terrorist act, and I will never forgive the terrorists.”
Jordanian officials were more circumspect, as their pilot remains at the extremists’ whim. Jordan’s offer to trade him for the suicide bomber, Sajida al-Rishawi, remains on the table.
But Jordanian society underwent a sea change in its attitude toward the coalition last week, as the fate of the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, transfixed the country and its powerful tribes. Even many Jordanians who at the beginning of the week said the hostage crisis showed they were involved in someone else’s war seemed to change their minds, especially after the horrible images of Mr. Goto’s killing emerged.