People look at a TV screen broadcasting a news program about Japanese journalist Kenji Goto (top L), who is being held hostage by Islamic State militants, and Sajida al-Rishawi (top R), an Iraqi female prisoner in Jordan, along a street in Tokyo January 29, 2015. [Photo/ Agencies]

NO WORD ON PILOT

The militant had the same British accent as the man featured in previous Islamic State videos showing beheadings. Goto wore an orange jumpsuit like Islamic State captives in past footage.

The landscape in the video showed a hill and land covered in scrub, and appeared different to the desert setting of previous videos.

Islamic State, which has seized large swaths of Iraq and Syria, has beheaded a number of Western journalists and aid workers, saying they were paying the price for their governments' fight against the group.

It has also killed many local people, through beheadings, stonings and shootings, accusing them of violating their hardline interpretation of Islamic law.

In November the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said Islamic State had killed 1,432 Syrians off the battlefield since the end of June when it declared a caliphate in the territory under its control.

There was no mention in the one-minute video of Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh who was seized by Islamic State after his jet crashed in northeast Syria in December during a bombing mission against the militants.

An audio message purportedly from Goto earlier this week said Kasaesbeh would be killed if Jordan did not free Iraqi Sajida al-Rishawi, in jail for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people in the Jordanian capital Amman.

Abe's government had put high priority on seeking the release of Goto, a veteran war correspondent captured by the militants in late October when he went to Syria seeking Yukawa's release.