Norway said Wednesday it was investigating claims by ISIS that it has killed Norwegian and Chinese hostages.
The terror group published graphic pictures in its propaganda magazine, Dabiq, of what it said were the bodies of the hostages, according to global security analysts, Flashpoint Intelligence.
Rune Bjastad, spokesman at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told NBC News that his department was urgently looking to verify the claims.
"We are working on the authentication of this information and photographs published today," he said, referring to the photographs in Dabiq.
The publication comes amid renewed focus on ISIS, after it claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris and the downing of a Russian airliner in Egypt. Both France and Russia said they have intensified airstrikes on the group's strongholds in Syria.
The hostages were not identified by Dabiq, but both ISIS and the Norwegian Foreign Ministry have previously said that a Norwegian national named Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad was a hostage.
According to The Associated Press, Grimsgaard-Ofstad is 48 years old. ISIS has also identified a Chinese kidnap victim as Fan Jinghui, a 58-year-old freelance consultant from Beijing, the AP reported.
ISIS did not provide any information of how the men were captured or killed.
