Islamic State said in the latest edition of its English
language magazine on Wednesday that it had killed a Chinese and a Norwegian
captive, showing what appeared to be pictures of the dead men under a banner
reading "Executed".
The Norwegian Foreign Ministry declined to comment.
In September, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said a
Norwegian man had been held hostage in Syria since January and was believed to
be in the hands of Islamic State.
She said Norway did not intend to pay a ransom for his
release. Solberg said the man, named by the foreign ministry as Ole Johan
Grimsgaard-Ofstad, was in his 40s and had been held by several groups since he
was first captured.
China's Foreign Ministry also said in September that one of
its citizens appeared to be in Islamic State captivity.
In the previous issue of the magazine, Dabiq, Islamic State
showed pictures of two men who it said were Norwegian and Chinese, wearing
yellow suits and with shaved heads.
It said their governments had "abandoned" them,
but that they were "for sale" and ransom payments could secure their
release.
It identified the Chinese man as Fan Jinghui and said he was
a 50-year-old freelance consultant from Beijing. It identified
Grimsgaard-Ofstad as a candidate for a masters degree in political science born
in 1967.
In its latest issue, it did not give any details about how,
when or where they were killed.
The magazine also carried a photo of what it said was the
improvised bomb that brought down a Russian airliner over Egypt's Sinai
Peninsula last month, killing all 224 people on board.
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