Photos: ISIS shoots down Jordanian jet, captures its pilot

(IraqiNews.com) On Wednesday, Jordan has confirmed that the ISIS group fighters have shot down a Jordanian warplane over Syria and captured its pilot, according to Jordan’s state news agency ‘PETRA.’

The ISIS group fighters have shot down a Jordanian warplane flying over Syria as assisting US-led coalition air strikes, and captured the pilot, who was identified as Mu’az Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh, according to Jordanian military officals.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the aircraft crashed near the city of al-Raqqa, and ISIS’s Raqqa Media Center (RMC) said the warplane was shot down in the area of Hamra near the northern of Raqqa.

“During a mission Wednesday morning conducted by several Royal Jordanian Air Force planes against hideouts of the IS terrorist organization in the Raqqa region, one of the planes went down and the pilot was taken hostage,” a Jordanian military official told PETRA. “Jordan holds the group and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life.”

“May Allah plant mercy in their hearts to release my son,” Mu’az’s father told the Jordanian newspaper Saraya.

Noteworthy, this comes as the first warplane shot down by ISIS since the US-led bombing campaign against the ISIS group fighters began about three months ago after the group had seized large swathes of territories in Iraq and Syria.