King returns to 
plan retaliation 
for pilot killing

The gruesome killing of 26-year-old Lt Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, captured while participating in airstrikes by a US-led coalition targeting the militants, has sparked worldwide outrage and triggered anti-Islamic State protests across Jordan and the Middle East.

King Abdullah II, a staunch Western ally, returned home from a White House meeting with President Barack Obama during which both leaders affirmed their resolve to destroy the militants who have seized about one-third of Syria and Iraq.

Jordan believes the international community must intensify the campaign against Islamic State, said government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani. “This evil can and should be defeated,” he said.

In the 20-minute video, the pilot displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. Towards the end of the clip, he is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit. He stands in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it.

The video, released on militant websites and bearing the logo of the extremist group’s al-Furqan media service, featured the slick production and graphics used in previous Islamic State videos.

Abdullah al-Muhaysni, a prominent Saudi sheik with close links to jihadi groups, said on his Twitter account that while he believes those carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State group deserve to be killed, the Jordanian pilot’s immolation was too barbaric and generated sympathy for the man.

“After millions of Muslims were cursing every pilot, with this act they (IS) have made the burned one a symbol,” the cleric wrote. “They made everyone who was reluctant to participate in the Crusader campaign (against IS) adjust his opinion and decide to participate.”

At the same time, Jordan faces increasing internal and external threats from militants. It borders areas of Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. There have also been signs of greater support for the group’s militant ideas among Jordan’s young and poor.

Following the pilot’s death, Jordan launched what it said would be a tough campaign against Islamic State. In a first response, Jordan executed Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, two Iraqis linked to al-Qaida.

Al-Rishawi had been sentenced to death after her 2005 role in a triple hotel bombing that killed 60 people in Amman orchestrated by al-Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of Islamic State. Al-Karbouly was sent to death row in 2008 for plotting terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq.

Islamic State group militants had purportedly demanded Jordan release al-Rishawi in exchange for the pilot. Over the past week, Jordan had offered to trade her, but froze any swap after failing to receive any proof that the pilot was still alive.

Jordan now believes that the airman was killed in the early days of January.

Al-Kaseasbeh had fallen into the hands of the militants when his F-16 crashed near Raqqa.

His father, Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh, urged his government to “take revenge for Muath and to take revenge for the country, even before Muath.”