Thursday 25 December 2014
Photo: A still image released by Islamic State showing a captured Jordanian pilot. (AFP: Welayat Raqa)
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The UN has urged Islamic State (IS) fighters to treat a captured pilot humanely, after his warplane crashed in north-eastern Syria and pictures purportedly showed him surrounded by masked men with guns.
Jordan's armed forces said First Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh - the first captive taken from the US-led coalition battling the militant group - had been seized after a coalition air raid over the province of Raqqa.
UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon condemned the pilot's kidnapping and called on IS to release him.
"The secretary calls on his captors to treat the pilot in accordance with international humanitarian laws," the UN said in a statement.
American officials dismissed claims by the militants that the F-16 had been shot down.
"Evidence clearly indicates that IS did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organisation is claiming," US Central Command, the body overseeing the coalition air war over Iraq and Syria, said in a statement.
The statement did not give a cause for the crash and confirmed the lost jet's pilot had been taken captive.
The IS branch in Raqqa published several photographs on jihadist websites purporting to show its fighters holding the pilot, with a caption identifying him as Jordanian.
The photographs showed the pilot, wearing only a white shirt, being carried from a body of water by four men, and also on land, surrounded by about a dozen armed men.
The images were verified by two relatives contacted by Reuters, who said they had been notified by the head of the Jordanian air force. The army separately confirmed his name.
Photo: A photograph reportedly showing an IS fighter with the wreckage of a Jordanian F-16 in Syria's Raqqa region. (AFP: RMC/STR)
"Jordan holds the group and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life," an army statement read on state television said.
The statement described IS as a "group that does not conceal its terrorist plots, committing many criminal acts from wanton destruction to killing innocent Muslims and non-Muslims in Syria and Iraq".
A friend said Lieutenant Kasaesbeh, who is from a prominent Jordanian family, was fervent in his commitment to his mission and felt it was a religious duty to fight extremist groups such as Islamic State that were "distorting the true spirit of Islam".
The pilot's father, Safi Yousef, appealed to the captors to show mercy and release his son, whom relatives said was a pious Muslim.
Jordan part of US-led coalition
Jordan is one of the countries participating in the US-led coalition, which has been bombing Islamic State targets in Syria since September.
The staunch US ally has provided a logistics base for the US-led air campaign and is a hub for intelligence-gathering operations against the jihadists.
A US National Security spokeswoman said the administration was in close touch with the Jordanian government and "our thoughts and prayers are with the pilot, his family, and our partners in the Jordanian armed forces".
Both the Syrian government and the US-led coalition regularly bomb IS targets in Raqqa province.
Jordan's King Abdullah has been in the forefront of regional US allies supportive of the campaign but has said radical Sunni extremists could not be defeated by military means alone and their ideology must be confronted with reason.
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have also joined or supported the strikes against Islamic State targets in Syria, according to US Central Command.
Events in Syria are difficult to confirm because of restricted media access to conflict zones.
Reuters/AFP
From other news sites:
- Yahoo!7 News Wed at 8:42pmWed 24 Dec 2014, 8:42pm IS downs warplane over Syria, claims capture of Jordan pilot
- CNN Wed at 3:35pmWed 24 Dec 2014, 3:35pm ISIS claims capture of Jordanian pilot after plane shot down over Syria
- BBC Wed at 3:49pmWed 24 Dec 2014, 3:49pm Islamic State 'shoots down coalition plane in Syria'
- The Age yesterday at 11:49pmWed 24 Dec 2014, 11:49pm 'More than 1000 jihadists killed' in US-led Syria strikes: monitor
- The Wall Street Journal Wed at 8:14pmWed 24 Dec 2014, 8:14pm Islamic State Shoots Down Coalition Warplane, Activists Say
