Asean foreign ministers have condemned the violence and brutality committed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), including the recent beheading of a Japanese citizen, Malaysian state news agency Bernama reported on Wednesday.

The stance was announced by Malaysia's foreign minister Anifah Aman at the end of the ministers' two-day retreat in Kota Kinabalu on Wednesday, Bernama reported. Datuk Seri Anifah said the ministers had renewed their commitment to combating violent extremism, including through the Global Movement of Moderates (GMM), an idea mooted by Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak at the United Nations General Assembly in 2010.

Mr Anifah said Malaysia, which chairs Asean this year, will convene an Asean Special Ministerial Meeting on Radicalism and Extremism in October.

"The meeting is scheduled to take place back-to-back with the Asean Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime in early October 2015," Mr Anifah was quoted as telling reporters after chairing the Asean Foreign Ministers' Retreat.

ISIS, which rules swathes of Syria and Iraq with a medieval form of Shi'ite Islam after a burst in insurgent activity last year, said in an online video last week it had kidnapped two Japanese nationals, self-employed contractor Haruna Yukawa and veteran journalist Kenji Goto. It demanded US$200 million (S$250 million) for their release, the same amount Tokyo had pleged to efforts to combat extremism.

A video emerged at the weekend in which the extremist group announced it had murdered Yukawa, and demanded Jordan to free suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi in exchange for the lives of Goto and Muath al-Kasaesbeh, a Jordanian pilot also captured by ISIS.

The militant group has previously beheaded two US reporters, an American aid worker and two British aid workers, on top of mass executions of Syrian fighters and other groups it deem to be infidels.