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ISIS Video Is Said to Show Jordanian Pilot Being Burned to Death Family and Nation Mourn Jordanian Pilot Killed by ISIS
(about 2 hours later)
In a new show of brutality for a group already known for displays of violence, the Islamic State released a video on Tuesday purporting to show the execution of a captive Jordanian pilot by burning him alive. AMMAN, Jordan — When relatives learned Tuesday night that the Islamic State had released a video showing the death of a Jordanian fighter pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, they tried to keep it from his mother, Issaf, and his wife, Anwar. They switched off the television and tried to wrest a smartphone out of his wife’s hand, but she had already seen a mobile news bulletin.
The lengthy footage shows clips of Jordan’s involvement in the United States-led airstrikes against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. At the end, the pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh, stands inside of a cage and is set on fire by an unidentified militant who uses a torch to ignite flammable liquid that has drenched the pilot’s clothing. Married only six months, Anwar ran crying into the street, calling her husband’s name and saying, “Please God, let it not be true.” Issaf fell to the floor screaming, pulled her head scarf off and started tearing at her hair.
The Islamic State’s previous video executions of Western hostages were all beheadings. The latest video, sent to reporters on Tuesday morning by members of the Islamic State and later reported by the SITE Intelligence Group, an organization that monitors jihadist activity on the Internet, was the group’s first known execution by fire. That was even before they knew how he had been killed. No one dared let them know right away that Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s tormentors had apparently burned him alive inside a cage, a killing that was soon described as the most brutal in the group’s bloody history.
“They have raised the bar in terms of brutality,” said David L. Phillips, a former senior adviser to the State Department on peace-building efforts in Iraq, who is now a director at Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights. Only a few minutes earlier, Anwar Kasasbeh had been laughing at the memory of her husband’s delight when he discovered that her family kept rabbits in their home; after they married, her parents gave them the rabbits to take care of.
King Abdullah II of Jordan, who was visiting Washington, met with President Obama on Tuesday night at the White House, but neither spoke to reporters who were briefly allowed into the meeting room. Jordan's official news agency said the king was truncating the trip to rush home. “It was so funny, he was so happy about those rabbits,” Anwar told a visiting reporter about her 26-year-old husband. “He told me how he always wanted rabbits.”
Jordan’s military vowed to avenge the pilot’s murder. The video, with its references to the Islamic State’s punishment of nations like Jordan that joined the American-led coalition against it, appeared to be an attempt to cow the Arab and other states that have agreed to battle the militants in Syria. So far, it appeared to have had the opposite effect in Jordan, which suggested its resolve had been stiffened. But the capture of the pilot had already hurt the coalition, with United Arab Emirates suspending its own airstrikes in December and demanding the group improve its search and rescue efforts for captured members.
“The blood of our hero martyr Moaz al-Kasasbeh will not go for nothing,” said Mandouh Ameri, a spokesman for the Jordanian military. “And the revenge will be equal to what happened to Jordan.” The spokesman did not specify what was meant by that threat. The release of the video came after weeks of growing anxiety in Jordan, as the country’s leaders tried desperately to win the release of Lieutenant Kasasbeh, a member of an important tribe and the first fighter for the coalition bombing the Islamic State to be captured. Their attempts became more complicated late last month when the Islamic State, also called ISIS or ISIL, suddenly entangled the pilot’s fate with that of a Japanese man it held hostage, demanding that Jordan release a would-be suicide bomber on death row in exchange for him.
There was no indication in the video of when it was made. Jordanian officials claimed Tuesday that the pilot had been executed Jan. 3, but the date was not independently confirmed and the Jordanian government did not offer an explanation for why officials believed the execution had happened then. If Jordan failed to do so by last Thursday, they said, Lieutenant Kasasbeh would be killed. Jordanian officials expressed willingness to bargain — a major concession to the militants — but refused to release the would-be bomber until they received proof that the pilot was alive.
American intelligence officials were working to confirm the authenticity of the video, a spokeswoman for the National Security Council said in a statement. On Tuesday, Jordanian officials said they learned the pilot had actually been killed Jan. 3, suggesting their caution was justifiable. They did not, however, explain where they got the information from.
At a White House news conference, Mr. Obama said he was aware of the footage. “It’s just one more indication of the viciousness and barbarity of this organization,” he said. “And I think it will redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of the global coalition to make sure that they are degraded and ultimately defeated.” Even by ISIS standards, the latest propaganda video was particularly gruesome. The footage alternates images of the pilot while he was alive with segments showing the rubble of destroyed buildings and the burned bodies of Syrians allegedly killed in coalition airstrikes. Islamic State members took to Twitter to applaud the pilot’s death, calling it an eye for an eye.
The 26-year-old pilot was captured by Islamic State militants Dec. 24 after his F-16 fighter jet went down over northern Syria. His captivity has transfixed his home country, where he comes from a prominent tribe. At the end of the 22-minute video, an ISIS fighter sets a powder fuse alight as Lieutenant Kasasbeh watches, his clothes drenched in fuel. The flames race into the cage and engulf him. The camera lingers, showing close-ups of his agony, before concluding with pictures of what the Islamic State claimed were other Jordanian pilots and the offer of a reward of 100 gold coins for whoever kills one of them.
Jordanian officials had attempted to negotiate with the Islamic State, which demanded the release of Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman incarcerated in Jordan for her role in a 2005 bombing attack in the country’s capital. The militants said they would kill Lieutenant Kasasbeh if Jordan failed to comply, then set a deadline of Jan. 28. Jordan’s military on Tuesday vowed to avenge the pilot’s death, and Jordan’s King Abdullah II planned to cut short a trip to Washington, returning by Wednesday, according to Jordanian media.
Even though Jordan said it would release Ms. Rishawi in return for the pilot — an enormous concession to the group — the talks broke down because the Islamic State appeared willing only to release a Japanese hostage in exchange, and not the pilot. “The blood of our hero martyr Moaz Kasasbeh will not go for nothing,” said Mamdouh al Ameri, a spokesman for the Jordanian military. “And the revenge will be equal to what happened to Jordan.” The spokesman did not specify what was meant by that threat.
After the deadline passed, the group released a video that appeared to show the Japanese hostage being beheaded. Jordan and the UAE are among several Arab countries taking part in American-led air raids against ISIS positions in Syria; two other Arab states, plus Iraq, are members of the coalition in other capacities.
The depiction of the pilot’s execution appeared to have been carefully produced. It shows him walking on a dirt path in an orange jumpsuit, the same uniform worn by Western hostages in other execution videos released by the Islamic State, meant to evoke the garb worn by prisoners at the American prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The pilot’s movements and expressions appear forced, as if he had been made to walk the sequence several times. Lieutenant Kasasbeh was allegedly shot down in his F-16 fighter bomber on Dec. 24 during an air operation against ISIS positions not far from their stronghold of Raqqa in northern Syria.
In the final minutes of the video, he is shown inside a black-barred cage, his jumpsuit soaked in what appears to be gasoline. A hooded Islamic State fighter theatrically lights a torch. The pilot is engulfed in flames. He is shown collapsing to his knees, then falls backward. He cut a dashing figure in uniform, with green eyes, black hair, and a slim build, and he had a significant social media following.
His capture transfixed the nation, which suddenly saw photos of the lieutenant being dragged by militants out of a swamp where he apparently crashed.
Weeks before the French and then the rest of the world reacted to the attack on Charlie Hebdo in France with “Je Suis Charlie,” Jordan’s Queen Rania started a campaign on Instagram, the popular photo-sharing service, called “We Are All Moaz,” referring to his first name.
Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s captivity at first aroused anti-coalition sentiment among many in Jordan, but public opinion shifted dramatically as the Islamic State issued videos showing what it said were the beheadings of two Japanese hostages, including the one ISIS had wanted to trade. By last week, critics of the coalition and the government had come under fire for trying to turn the pilot’s plight to political advantage.
For someone in the elite forefront of Jordan’s air force — its 60 or more F-16s are its most important aircraft —Lieutenant Kasasbeh had not shown any early interest in the military or in flying, his family said.
“It was just by happenstance,” his father, Safi Youssef Al-Kasasbeh, said Sunday. During his last year in high school, his son, the fourth of eight children and the third son, had been planning to go to medical school in Russia, as his mother had long encouraged. But they saw a notice in a Jordanian newspaper inviting candidates to see if they qualified for the air force, and, on a lark, Lieutenant Kasasbeh applied for what would be a prestigious position.
To everyone’s surprise, he was chosen over hundreds of other applicants and went straight to flight school instead of to college. He graduated and was commissioned an air force officer in 2009.
His eldest brother, Jawad Safi Kasasbeh, an engineer seven years older than Moaz, has been taking his captivity particularly hard. Twice Jawad had saved his younger brother’s life when he was a small child: once when Moaz accidentally started a fire, and another time when he nearly stuck a nail in an electric socket.
“Now when he really needs me, I can’t do anything,” he said. “I was the one who was supposed to support him, to be there for him.”
Jawad even helped introduce him to his future wife, Anwar, the sister of Jawad’s best friend. The couple had moved into an apartment of their own, in the family’s hometown Karak, so Moaz could be close to his parents, instead of near the air base a couple hours’ drive away. Moaz often visited his parents on days off, and the last time Jawad saw him, five days before he was captured, he had been taking his father’s car to Amman for repair.
Far from the speed-addict image of the fighter pilot, his family said he was austere in his personal habits. His car was a nine-year-old Mitsubishi Lancer, and he rarely wore jeans, preferring suits when he was not in uniform.
His brothers and his parents all agreed that Lieutenant Moaz had always been the favored son, the one closest to them among the eight siblings. He usually got his own way with his father, but not always.
Like Anwar, Jawad recalled how much his brother had wanted a pet rabbit and how he badgered their father, who said they had no place to put it. So Moaz built an enclosure in the yard and asked again. When his father said they had no food for the animal, Moaz gathered rabbit food and stocked the enclosure. Still no. So he got his baby sister and put her there, saying, “See, she’s my rabbit now.”
Tears came to Jawad’s eyes as he recalled that story. Before she learned of her husband’s death, Anwar, his wife, worried that he would be upset if he returned home to learn that, distracted by concern over his plight, no one had taken care of the rabbits and they had escaped.