Jordan carries out new air strikes after pilot’s murder

Jordan said on Thursday that its warplanes had launched new strikes againstIslamic State (Isis), after promising a harsh response to the burning alive of one of its fighter pilots captured in Syria.

The announcement came as King Abdullah II paid his personal condolences to the airman’s family, which has urged the government to destroy the jihadis.

“The Jordanian air force launched raids against positions of the Islamic State group,” said a government official, who did not want to be named.

He did not disclose where or when the strikes took place, saying the military would release a statement later.

Jordan has conducted regular raids against Isis in Syria as part of a US-led campaign against the Sunni extremist group, which has seized swaths of land in both Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

More than 200,000 people have died since anti-government protests broke out in Syria in early 2011, escalating into a civil war that brought jihadis streaming into the country.

At least 57 people, including 12 children, were killed on Thursday in a barrage of government air strikes and shelling of rebel areas around the capital, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The assault on the Eastern Ghouta region came after rebels fired more than 100 rockets at Damascus, killing 10 people including a child, the British-based monitoring group said.

The murder of airman Muadh al-Kasasbeh, whom Isis captured in December when his F-16 fighter plane went down in Syria, has increased support in Jordan for stepping up military action against the jihadis.

“Jordan will wage all-out war to protect our principles and values,” the al-Rai government newspaper wrote in an editorial. “We are on the lookout for this band of criminals.”

Abdullah cut short a visit to the US and flew back to Amman on Wednesday after the video emerged of the pilot’s killing.

“The blood of martyr Muadh al-Kasasbeh will not be in vain and the response of Jordan and its army after what happened to our dear son will be severe,” he said afterwards.

Jordan has also executed two Iraqis on death row, the would-be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi and al-Qaida operative Ziad al-Karboli.

Abdullah travelled to Kassasbeh’s home town of Karak, 70 miles south of the capital, on Thursday, where a traditional mourning tent was set up for the family to receive guests.

Hundreds of people, including military representatives and civilians, gathered as the king sat next to the 26-year-old’s father, Safi.

The airman’s killing sparked outrage in Jordan and demonstrations in Amman and Karak, the bastion of Kassasbeh’s influential tribe.

The pilot’s father branded Isis militants as “infidels and terrorists who know no humanity or human rights”.

“The international community must destroy the Islamic State group,” he said.

 

THE GUARDIAN