Tuesday, February 03, 2015

Caged & Burned: Video of Jordanian Pilot [updated link]

 

Content Warning:
The very difficult to watch 
ISIS video, can be viewed at a separate link.  Please consider carefully before viewing.  The images are painful to view and hard to forget.  If you really wish to view it click here.  The actual execution begins at the 17 minute mark.

Torched to Death in a Cage

Militants fighting for the Islamic State terror group in Syria and Iraq have claimed to have burned alive captured Jordanian pilot Moaz al-Kasasbeh while he was locked helpless in a cage.
 
The chilling footage appears to show the captured airman being set alight as the militants - infamous for their barbaric murders - plunged new depths of depravity.  
 
The expertly-edited footage, filmed from several camera angles, shows the pilot wearing an orange jumpsuit and seemingly doused in fuel, as a trail of petrol leading up to the iron bars of the cage is seen being set ablaze.
 
Flames are seen quickly spreading across the dirt to the cage where they completely engulf the helpless pilot in images that are far too distressing to publish. The release of the video has prompted Jordan to announce it will execute all six prisoners convicted of association with ISIS 'within hours'. Within an hour of the 22-minute-long video's publication, Jordan reportedly moved ISIS-linked prisoners to a jail in the south of the country which is usually used for state executions.  
[Daily Mail - UK]


UPDATES:

Jordan Executes Two Prisoners - Greg Botelho & Dana Ford 

In Amman and in the pilot's hometown, crowds hit the streets calling for revenge. Tom Fuentes, a CNN law enforcement analyst, noted: "When was the last time you had a mob in the street of one of these Muslim countries that was not screaming 'death to America,' but in fact screaming, 'get revenge on ISIS.'" 
(CNN)
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Muslim Outrage Against ISIS - Liz Sly & Hugh Naylor

Declarations of outrage swept the Middle East as the spectacle of an Arab pilot being burned alive in a cage triggered some of the harshest reactions yet. The pan-Arab daily al-Hayat headlined its coverage: "Barbarity," while Iyad Madani, secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, condemned the killing as an affront to Islam. "Most of the people executed by [the Islamic State] have been foreigners, but this time it was an Arab Muslim man," said Labib Kamhawi, a political analyst based in Amman.
    

However, Hisham al-Hashimi, an expert on ISIS who advises the Iraqi government, said, "The Islamic State has gained more from this than it has lost." In the Syrian city of Raqqa, the Islamic State broadcast video of the pilot's death on giant video screens as crowds shouted, "God is Great." 
(Washington Post)
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3 comments:

LHwrites said...

Horrible. And it seems a tactical error on the part of ISIS. It is said they were trying to push Jordan from working with the coalition in Syria but instead they have unleashed the wrath of a nation that watched supposed 'brothers' commit atrocities upon one of their own. Of course, they were already doing this to said 'brothers and sisters' in Iraq and Syria, but spreading to nations that could have leaned either way is going to cost them. The participation in the coalition by Jordan was said to be unpopular among its citizens but now they are galvanized against a common, barbaric enemy.

Bruce said...

Quite right. But ISIS may not care much about Jordan. Their aim is to galvanize support among Muslims worldwide. Based on reports on their wildly successful recruitment, they seem to be succeeding.

Bruce said...

See for instance:

ISIS Ranks Grow as Fast as U.S. Bombs Can Wipe Them Out
- Tim Mak and Nancy A. Youssef
(Daily Beast)

Four thousand foreign fighters have joined ISIS since the allied airstrikes began, U.S. intelligence officials say. That's nearly as many combatants as coalition forces claimed to have killed.

Moreover, the tally doesn’t count the thousands of local Iraqi and Syrian combatants who’ve joined the conflict.

"The numbers are not moving in our favor," Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-TN) said last week, after a secret briefing with Gen. John Allen, presidential envoy in the campaign against ISIS.