Jordan executes 2 terrorists after ISIL kills pilot

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) Jordan executed two terrorists early Wednesday, hours after Islamic State jihadists released a video purporting to show them burning alive a captured Jordanian air-force pilot.

The death of the piloty, Firat Lt. Muath al-Kasasbeh, had spurred promises Tuesday evening of a severe response from Jordan, but execution of the two prisoners in the early hours of Wednesday came with unexpected swiftness. It was a dramatic tit-for-tat in the fight against Islamic State militants who have killed numerous high-profile hostages as they have spread across Iraq and Syria since last summer.

The two executed were Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman whose release the militants had demanded, and Ziad al-Karbouli, a man convicted in 2007 of plotting terror acts, according to an interior ministry statement.

Jordan last week offered a prisoner swap under which it said it would exchange Ms. Rishawi for Lt. Kasasbeh, who had been captured in December after his plane crashed on a mission over Syria.

Ms. Rishawi—a self-described al Qaeda operative—was sentenced to death for her role in Amman hotel bombings in 2005. The militants had demanded Ms. Rishawi be handed to them by Jan. 29 to spare the lives of Lt. Kasasbeh and another hostage, Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.

Jordan asked for proof the pilot was alive, however, and the talks stalled. Islamic State distributed a video Saturday purporting to show Mr. Goto’s decapitation, drawing condemnation from leaders in Japan, Jordan, the U.S. and elsewhere.

The video of Lt. Kasasbeh’s purported killing then emerged on Tuesday evening. The 22-minute video begins with footage of Jordanian involvement in a U.S.-led military coalition against Islamic State. It then shows what appears to be Lt. Kasasbeh describing Jordan’s military operations before he is burned alive inside a cage.

Jordan’s government confirmed Lt. Kasasbeh’s death shortly after the video’s release by the extremist-tracking organization SITE Intelligence Group, but didn’t say whether the video was authentic. Jordan’s government spokesman promised “an earth-shattering response” against Islamic State.

U.S. and Jordanian officials expressed outrage over the killing and vowed to press on with the campaign against Islamic State, a radical group that erected a de facto state across large swaths of Syria and Iraq last summer. /End/