The executions at dawn came just hours after Islamic State militants released a video that purportedly showed captured Jordanian fighter pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh being burned alive in a cage.
Jordan vowed a swift and lethal response.
Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said that two prisoners, al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli, were executed early Wednesday.
Al-Rishawi has been on death row for her role in a triple hotel bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005 that killed dozens.
The IS group had offered to trade Kasaesbeh, who was taken hostage by IS group militants in Syria in December when his Jordanian F-16 crashed near Raqqa, for Rishawi, but Jordan had insisted it would first need proof that the pilot was still alive.
Shortly after details of the pilot’s death emerged on Tuesday, however, Jordan’s state broadcaster announced that Kasaesbeh had been killed already on January 3 – raising questions over whether any of the hostage negotiations had ever been sincere.
- Jordan then vowed to deliver a “strong, earth-shaking and decisive” response to avenge the pilot’s murder.
The killing drew worldwide condemnation, including from President Barack Obama and the UN Security Council.
It appeared aimed at pressuring the government of Jordan – a close US ally – to leave the coalition that has carried out months of airstrikes targeting Islamic State positions in Syria and Iraq. But the extremists’ brutality against a fellow Muslim could backfire and galvanise other Sunni Muslims in the region against them.
King Abdullah II has portrayed the campaign against the extremists as a battle over values.
(FRANCE 24 with AP, AFP, REUTERS)
www.france24.com
4/2/15
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The father of Muath al-Kasaesbeh, the Jordanian pilot who was burned to death while in Islamic State captivity, called on all countries fighting the jihadist organization to avenge his son’s death...
ReplyDeleteSpeaking to Al-Arabiya television, Safi Yousef said that ISIS’ “terrorist actions are far from the meaning of Islam.”
http://www.jpost.com/Breaking-News/Father-of-Jordanian-pilot-burned-to-death-by-ISIS-calls-on-US-led-coalition-to-avenge-sons-death-389940
4/2/15
The father of a Jordanian air force pilot killed on Wednesday by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant group has said that his country's execution of two Iraqis – convicted earlier on terrorism charges – was not enough to avenge his slain son...
DeleteIn remarks to Jordanian state television, Safi al-Kasasba, father of slain pilot Moaz al-Kasasba, urged Jordan – along with a U.S.-led anti-ISIL coalition to which Jordan belongs – to eradicate the militant group with a series of "strong blows."
"If the ISIL isn't eliminated, it will turn the whole region upside-down, as it draws its members from all over the world," the elder al-Kasasba, who appeared composed, declared.
Earlier Wednesday, the Jordanian authorities executed two Iraqi nationals – Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziyad al-Karbouli – who had been on death row in Jordan for years after being convicted of terrorism in 2006.
Both were hanged shortly after the appearance of a video purportedly showing the pilot's execution by the ISIL...............http://www.aa.com.tr/en/headline/460963--jordan-executions-not-enough-slain-pilots-father
4/2/15