China hasn’t been an active participant in the fight against ISIS, but, in the wake of the killing, pledged to “enhance its counter-terrorism cooperation with the global community”.
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The extremist group published two images of the men in the second-to-last page of its English-language magazine, saying they had been “executed after being abandoned by kafir nations and organisations”.
In a statement, the country’s foreign ministry said they had been attempting to secure the hostage’s release following his kidnapping. “Kafir” is the Arabic word for infidel.
The state-run Beijing News said Fan was probably a former advertising executive who had once lived in a western suburb of Beijing, but that his company shut down in 2003.
The magazine featured graphic photos of two bodies that appeared to be Norwegian hostage Ole-Johan Grimsgaard- Ofstad and Chinese Fan Jinghui.
Chinese President Xi Jinping said Thursday that “China strongly condemns the brutality of the killing of Chinese national”.
China has confirmed the murder of a Chinese hostage by Islamic State in Syria and promised to “bring to justice” those responsible.
In the images, the men both appeared to have both been shot to death.
On Thursday morning, “Chinese hostage” was the sixth most searched term on Weibo, China’s Twitter, but evidence from Free Weibo, a website that captures deleted social media posts, shows many posts have been deleted.
Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg said there was no reason to doubt the claim, and called it a “despicable and barbaric act”.
The latest issue of its 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. She had said the man was in his 40s and had been held by several groups since he was first captured.
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The Islamic State, a violent extremist group, seized large areas in Syria and Iraq and declared a caliphate on territories under its control.
