Japanese man feared kidnapped by Syrian militants

Japan’s government said Monday it was investigating a video posted online that appears to show a kidnapped Japanese man being roughly interrogated by Syrian militants. The video, which surfaced over the weekend, shows a man who identified himself as Haruna Yukawa lying on the ground with blood trickling down his face as his apparent captors question him. The man, with matted brown hair and wearing a black T-shirt stained by dust and sweat, offered brief responses to questions posed in English about why he was in Syria and the reason he was carrying a gun. He replied in stilted English that he was a ‘photographer’ and a ‘journalist, half doctor’, as his interrogators accused him of lying, with one placing a long knife near his chest before the video stops. ‘I'm no soldier,’ the man said in the video as apparently dubbed on Middle-Eastern music played. Japan’s foreign ministry said it was trying to verify the man's identity through its embassy in violence-wracked Syria, which is now operating out of neighbouring Jordan. ‘We are gathering all available information available, including on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, but we have to be cautious about the credibility of that kind of information,’ a ministry official said, according to AFP.