By giving Tokyo just 72 hours to come up with an eye-popping $200 million ransom for a pair of Japanese hostages it is threatening to kill, the Islamic State group has likely made its demand with the implicit knowledge that it won't be met.
Instead, the group, which has seized large swaths of Syria and Iraq in its quest to create an Islamic caliphate, is likely using the situation to generate controversy and keep its name in the news, according to leading analysts.
"The Islamic State has specialized in manufacturing attention-grabbing international crises," Joshua M. Landis, a prominent Syria analyst and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told The Japan Times.
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