A handout picture released by Jordan's official Petra news agency on April 24, 2006 shows Sajida al-Rishawi , a would-be Iraqi female suicide bomber, standing in a cell at the State Security court during her trial in Amman. Jordan executed two death-row jihadists including the Iraqi woman militant on Wednesday.
AMMAN, Jordan — Jordan executed two al-Qaida prisoners before dawn Wednesday, just hours after an online video purported to show Islamic State group militants burning a captured Jordanian pilot to death in a cage.
The gruesome death of 26-year-old Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, captured while participating in airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition targeting the militants, sparked outrage across the Middle East and anti-Islamic State protests in Jordan.
The pilot’s father called on the government to avenge his son, and officials threatened a tough response, as King Abdullah II, a staunch Western ally, rushed back to his kingdom from Washington. Several thousand people received the monarch at Jordan’s main airport in a show of support, holding up pictures of the king, the pilot and national flags.
In Raqaa, the Islamic State group’s de facto capital, the militants gleefully played al-Kaseasbeh’s slaying on big-screen televisions, Syrian activists there said.
In its first response, Jordan executed Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, two Iraqis linked to al-Qaida, government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said. Another official said they were executed by hanging.
The executions took place at Swaqa prison about 80 kilometres south of the Jordan’s capital, Amman. At sunrise, two ambulances carrying the bodies of al-Rishawi and al-Karbouly drove away from the prison with security escorts. Authorities said they’d be buried later in Jordan.
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 the Islamic State group. Al-Karbouly was sent to death row in 2008 for plotting terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq.
The militants purportedly had 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.
The Jordanian military said, without elaborating, that the pilot was killed Jan. 3, suggesting officials knew any attempt to trade would be in vain.
Al-Kaseasbeh had fallen into the hands of the militants when his F-16 crashed near Raqqa. He was the first airman participating in the U.S.-led bombing raids against militant positions in Syria and Iraq to be captured.
In the 20-minute video purportedly showing his killing, he displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. Toward 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, which threatened other purported Jordanian pilots by name, was released on militant websites and bore the logo of the extremist group’s al-Furqan media service. The clip featured the slick production and graphics used in previous Islamic State group videos. The video could not immediately be confirmed independently by The Associated Press.
Jordan’s military quickly confirmed al-Kaseasbeh had been killed. “Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians,” army spokesman Mamdouh al-Ameri said.
Jordan faces increasing threats from the militants. Jordan borders areas of Islamic State group’s self-declared caliphate. There also have been signs of greater support for the group’s militant ideas among Jordan’s young and poor.
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