Jordan executes 2 prisoners after pilot burned alive by Islamic State
A man purported to be Islamic State captive Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh stands in front of armed men in this undated image. (Reuters)
By William Booth and Taylor Luck
February 4 at 3:36 PM
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan’s King Abdullah II vowed Wednesday that his military forces would hit Islamic State militants with “relentless” strikes upon “their very homes,” an escalation that could place Jordan in the middle of the Syrian civil war.
The king huddled with his security cabinet and top generals Wednesday just hours after Jordan hanged two convicted terrorists in retaliation against the Islamic State, which posted a video Tuesday of its fighters burning a captured Jordanian pilot alive in a cage.
The video shocked ordinary Jordanians and mostly silenced critics here of the U.S.-led offensive against the Islamic State, a radical and heavily armed al-Qaeda offshoot also known as ISIS or ISIL. The government also stoked the patriotic fires, covering billboards in Amman with posters reading “We Are All Jordan” and hosting a rally of flag-waving supporters to greet the king upon his arrival at the airport.
“We will be on the lookout for these criminals, and we will hit them in their own homes,” Abdullah declared, according to the state news agency Petra. “We are fighting this war to protect our faith, values and our humanitarian principles. Our fight will be relentless.”
[Read: The chilling reason the Islamic State burned the pilot alive]
The hangings underscored the hardening stance by the monarch and his military in Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State, amid street protests calling for revenge against the militant group.
The backlash from the video — released while Abdullah was securing $1 billion a year in aid from Washington — appears to have drawn the usually cautious monarch into a direct confrontation with radical Islamists.
The king, a descendent of the prophet Muhammad and schooled in Britain and the United States, has previously avoided direct threats against the Islamic State and has sought to keep secret the number of bombing missions his air force has flown over Syria.
But before he left Washington, Abdullah met with members of Congress. According to Rep. Duncan D. Hunter (R-Calif.), the Jordanian monarch quoted the Clint Eastwood character William Munny, an aging gunslinger in the Oscar-winning film “Unforgiven,” who exacts vengeance when his friend is tortured to death.
Abdullah did not elaborate on where or how strikes would be carried out.
Jordan’s chief government spokesman said the two prisoners executed Wednesday included Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman sentenced to death for her role in a deadly 2005 terrorist attack in Amman. The Islamic State had sought her release as part of a possible prisoner swap.
The other inmate was Ziad al-Karbouli, who was linked to a terrorist attack against Jordanians in Iraq in 2005 and whose freedom was also demanded by the Islamic State.
They were hanged less than 12 hours after the gruesome video of the pilot’s death was posted online.
Jordan had offered to free Rishawi in exchange for the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, and a Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, held by the Islamic State.
Voices that recently called for Jordan to withdraw from the U.S.-led offensive against the Islamic State fell suddenly silent as Jordanians came together to denounce the militants.
“This terrible act has created tremendous unity in Jordan,” said Jawad Anani, a senator and former foreign minister. “Ordinary Jordanians now see the threat to their own security.”
Anani, who is close to Abdullah, suggested that airstrikes by Jordan and the coalition would intensify, and he said it was possible that Jordanian ground troops or special forces might be deployed in Syria.
“The next logical step, you can intensify the conflict,” Anani said.
But others doubt that the current backlash will stir major changes in Muslim participation in the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.
“The killing’s impact on the coalition will not really be a game-changer because the participation of countries depends on a variety of issues that are specific to each country,” said Elias Hanna, a retired Lebanese general who teaches geopolitics at the American University of Beirut.
“We won’t see Arab boots on the ground,” he predicted. “That’s for certain.”
In his first public statement since the video, Safi al-Kaseasbeh, the pilot’s father, said Wednesday that he expects Jordan and the U.S.-led coalition to “take revenge” for the brutal killing.
Just last week, the elder Kaseasbeh had appealed for Jordan to pull out of the coalition.
“I urge the government, I expect the government, to seek revenge, severe revenge, for the blood of Muath against this horrid organization, this criminal organization, this organization that is far from Islam and the spirit of Islam,” said the pilot’s father.
[Related: The Islamic State was dumped by al-Qaeda a year ago.]
Members of the extended Kaseasbeh clan greeted a steady stream of visitors at their mourning tent outside the city of Karak, about 40 miles south of Amman. The family had no body to bury. On the video, Islamic State fighters are shown dumping a bulldozer load of cement rubble over his body.
Mosques across Jordan held prayers for Kaseasbeh at noon, with government-supported imams denouncing the Islamic State.
"May God rest the soul of the honorable martyr Muath al-Kaseasbeh and destroy the terrorist criminals who carried out this act,” Imam Marouf al-Shareef said, leading prayers at Amman’s King Abdullah I Mosque.
Meanwhile, Christian churches in Amman pealed their bells in interfaith solidarity. After noon prayers, Royal Jordanian Air Force fighter jets flew over Amman and Karak.
“Hopefully that is the sound we will hear when they take the fight to the terrorists,” said Khalid Daratkeh, 48, an Amman lawyer, as the jets passed overhead.
Marwan Muasher, a former foreign minister and vice president of studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Jordanians will perceive the fight against the Islamic State as “not only a military war, but what has become a war of values.”
At the same time, Jordan also faces tests on whether it can build on the current displays of unity and resolve.
There have been past signs of support for the Islamic State in Jordan — especially in the poorer regions — although relatively few have waved Islamic State flags or endorsed the group on the Internet.
Labib Kamhawi, an Amman-based political analyst, said King Abdullah is in “a difficult position” on how to frame the response.
“The issue is whether he can transform this into a national issue that affects Jordanians, or whether it becomes a tribal matter with mounting calls for revenge and eye-for-an-eye attacks,” he said.
He added: “Flexing muscles is one thing. Venturing into hasty decisions, like sending Jordanian troops into Syria against ISIS, could be very dangerous.”
In Washington, President Obama said the United States and its coalition partners would “redouble” their determination to defeat the Islamic State, but U.S. officials said they did not envision any expansion or change in the current strategy.
Hugh Naylor in Beirut and Karen DeYoung, Brian Murphy and Greg Jaffe in Washington contributed to this report.
Related stories on the Islamic State:
- The Islamic State is failing at being a state
- The Islamic State was dumped by al-Qaeda a year ago. Look where it is now.
- The Islamic State and its war against history
- What led to the Islamic State’s terrifying rise
- Map: How the flow of foreign fighters to Iraq and Syria has surged since October
William Booth is The Post’s Jerusalem bureau chief. He was previously bureau chief in Mexico, Los Angeles and Miami.
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