The mother of one of the Japanese men being held hostage by the terrorist group Islamic State (IS) in the Mideast appeared before reporters on Friday to plead for his release.  The hostage-takers’ deadline of 72 hours comes up sometime today, and there appears to be no movement towards securing the men’s release.

“My son is not an enemy of the Islamic State,” said a tearful Junko Ishido of her son, freelance journalist Kenji Goto.  She said that Goto and her daughter-in-law had a newborn baby, and Ms. Ishido said the child needed his father.  As is Japanese custom when someone gets in the news involuntarily, she apologized repeatedly for “all the trouble my son has caused”.

IS demanded US$200 Million for the release of the 47-year old Goto and 42-year old self-styled security contractor Haruna Yukawa.  That’s an amount equal to that Japan had promised to Mideast nations current battling the terrorist group. 

But Japan doesn’t have a very big presence in the region, and few if any contacts with Islamic State.  A day ago, government spokesman Yoshihide Suga complained that Tokyo wasn’t even able to reach IS.  That may be the idea, as the amount of money demanded by IS is clearly motivated by Japan’s foray into regional geo-politics, and there may be no serious expectation of Japan paying that amount.