CAIRO (AP) — The Islamic State group on Wednesday claimed to be holding a Norwegian man and a Chinese consultant hostage and demanded ransom for their release.

The extremist group posted pictures of the two men wearing yellow prison outfits in the latest issue of its online magazine Dabiq. It identifies the Norwegian man as Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad, 48, from Oslo, and the Chinese man as Fan Jinghui, 50, a freelance consultant from Beijing.

The magazine lists a telegram number for "whoever would like to pay the ransom for his release and transfer."

It does not say when or where the two were captured. The IS group controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, and has killed several captives in gruesome videos released online.

Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg told news agency NTB that a Norwegian citizen was being held hostage in Syria.

"This is a serious and complicated matter. The goal of our efforts is to get our citizen back safely to Norway," Solberg told NTB.

It was not immediately clear if she was referring to the man the IS group claimed to have captured.

Chinese officials could not immediately be reached for comment.