Muath Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh ( ar, معاذ صافي يوسف الكساسبة, Muʿaḏ Ṣāfī Yūsuf al-Kasāsibah
South Levantine pronunciation: ; 29 May 1988 – 3 January 2015) was a
Royal Jordanian Air Force
The Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF; ar, سلاح الجو الملكي الأردني, Silāḥ ul-Jawu al-Malakī 'al-Urdunī) is the aerial warfare branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces.
History
Early days
Jordan gained independence in 1 ...
pilot who was captured and
burned to death by the militant group
ISIL
An Islamic state is a state that has a form of government based on Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a translation of the Arabic term ' ...
after his
F-16
The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successful ...
fighter aircraft crashed over
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
.
His fighter crashed near
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) ( Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, R ...
, Syria, on 24 December 2014 during the
military intervention against the Islamic State
In response to rapid territorial gains made by the so-called Islamic State during the first half of 2014, and its universally condemned executions, reported human rights abuses and the fear of further spillovers of the Syrian Civil War, many st ...
. United States and Jordanian officials said that the crash was caused by mechanical problems, while ISIL claimed that the plane was hit by a heat-seeking missile.
ISIL held al-Kasasbeh captive before killing him in early January 2015. It then conducted negotiations with the Jordanian government, claiming it would spare al-Kasabeh's life and free Japanese journalist
Kenji Goto
was a Japanese freelance video journalist covering wars and conflicts, refugees, poverty, AIDS, and child education around the world. In October 2014, he was captured and held hostage by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants after ent ...
in exchange for
Sajida al-Rishawi
Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi ( ar, ساجدة مبارك عطروس الريشاوي} 1970 – 4 February 2015) was a failed suicide bomber. She was convicted of possessing explosives and intending to commit a terrorist act in the 9 November ...
, a woman sentenced to death by Jordan for attempted terrorism and possessing explosives.
After the Jordanian government insisted on freeing al-Kasasbeh as part of the deal and showing proof that he was alive before it would exchange al-Rishawi, ISIL released a video on 3 February 2015 showing al-Kasasbeh being burned to death while trapped inside a cage.
Al-Kasasbeh's killing provoked widespread outrage in Jordan, and condemnation by leading figures of the Islamic world and subsequently led the Jordanian government to execute two Iraqi militants on death row (including al-Rishawi, who ISIL had requested in exchange for al-Kasasbeh) in retaliation over the killing. In direct military retaliation,
King Abdullah ordered
Operation Martyr Muath, a series of airstrikes that killed a number of ISIL militants over the course of three days.
Personal life
Al-Kasasbeh was one of eight children, including an elder brother, Jawdat Safi al-Kasasbeh, born to Issaf and Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh, a retired education professor, in
Al Karak
Al-Karak ( ar, الكرك), is a city in Jordan known for its medieval castle, the Kerak Castle. The castle is one of the three largest castles in the region, the other two being in Syria. Al-Karak is the capital city of the Karak Governorate.
...
, Jordan.
He was a
Sunni Muslim
Sunni Islam () is the largest branch of Islam, followed by 85–90% of the world's Muslims. Its name comes from the word ''Sunnah'', referring to the tradition of Muhammad. The differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims arose from a disagree ...
. The al-Kasasbehs are a prominent Jordanian family of the influential Sunni Muslim Bararsheh tribe from southern Jordan.
His uncle, Fahed al-Kasasbeh, was a
Major General
Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...
in the
Royal Jordanian Army
The Royal Jordanian Army (Arabic: القوّات البرية الاردنيّة; ) is the ground force branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces (JAF). It draws its origins from units such as the Arab Legion, formed in the British Mandate of Trans ...
.
Al-Kasasbeh married engineer Anwar al-Tarawneh in September 2014. Prior to his capture, al-Kasasbeh lived in the village of Ay in the Karak Mountains in
Karak Governorate
Karak ( ar, الكرك) is one of the governorates of Jordan, located south-west of Amman, Jordan's capital. Its capital is Al-Karak. It s bordered by Madaba and the Capital governorates to the north, Ma'an Governorate to the east, Tafilah Govern ...
, south of
Amman.
Career
In 2009, al-Kasasbeh graduated from the
King Hussein Air College
King Hussein Air Base ( ar, قاعدة الملك الحسين الجوية) also known as Mafraq Air Base and King Hussein Air College, is an air base of the city of Mafraq, in the Mafraq Governorate of Jordan.
History
The site has been used ...
and joined the
Royal Jordanian Air Force
The Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF; ar, سلاح الجو الملكي الأردني, Silāḥ ul-Jawu al-Malakī 'al-Urdunī) is the aerial warfare branch of the Jordanian Armed Forces.
History
Early days
Jordan gained independence in 1 ...
. He completed his F-16 training in The Royal Jordanian Air Force, By 2012 he qualified as an operational F-16 pilot and was assigned to No. 1 Squadron at
Muwaffaq Salti Air Base
Muwaffaq Salti Air Base - Azraq ( ar, قاعدة الشهيد موفق السلطي الجوية - الازرق ) is a Royal Jordanian Air Force air base located in Azraq, Zarqa Governorate.
History
In 1918, during World War I, T.E. Lawrence ( ...
.
At the time of his capture, al-Kasasbeh was a
first lieutenant
First lieutenant is a commissioned officer military rank in many armed forces; in some forces, it is an appointment.
The rank of lieutenant has different meanings in different military formations, but in most forces it is sub-divided into a se ...
.
He was posthumously promoted to the rank of captain.
Capture
The plane al-Kasasbeh was piloting, a
Lockheed Martin F-16 formerly used by the
Royal Belgian Air Force
The Belgian Air Component ( nl, Luchtcomponent, french: Composante air) is the air arm of the Belgian Armed Forces, and until January 2002 it was officially known as the Belgian Air Force ( nl, Belgische Luchtmacht; french: Force aérienne belg ...
, crashed after suffering from mechanical problems on 24 December 2014 during a bombing raid on a brick factory during the military intervention against the Islamic State.
The Jordanian government said a technical failure caused him to eject after flying at low altitude, but the Islamic State claimed it shot down his aircraft.
He ejected and parachuted into a lake near
Raqqa, Syria. He was quickly captured by Islamic State militants and pulled from the water.
US officials state they initiated a search and rescue mission, but they did not locate him before he was captured.
On 30 December 2014, al-Kasasbeh appeared in a detailed interview with ISIL's ''
Dabiq'' magazine.
Unsuccessful negotiations took place for his release. His family applied pressure on the Jordanian government to arrange for his release. Originally, it was proposed to trade him and a kidnapped Japanese journalist,
Kenji Goto
was a Japanese freelance video journalist covering wars and conflicts, refugees, poverty, AIDS, and child education around the world. In October 2014, he was captured and held hostage by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants after ent ...
, for
Sajida al-Rishawi
Sajida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi ( ar, ساجدة مبارك عطروس الريشاوي} 1970 – 4 February 2015) was a failed suicide bomber. She was convicted of possessing explosives and intending to commit a terrorist act in the 9 November ...
, a failed Iraqi
suicide bomber
A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...
incarcerated in Jordan since she took part in the
2005 Amman hotel bombings, and sentenced to death.
The Jordanian government insisted on proof that al-Kasasbeh was still alive before it could proceed with a swap. ISIL refused and published the video of his killing.
A military operation to free al-Kasasbeh, possibly by
Jordanian special forces, may have been made on 1 January 2015. Members of an anti-ISIL group in Raqqa, named
Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said they witnessed coalition jets bombing targets in Raqqa in some of the fiercest strikes of the anti-ISIL campaign, while four helicopters dropped off soldiers wearing purported Jordanian Army uniforms. The mission was aborted when ISIL fighters in the area began firing anti-aircraft missiles at the helicopters, forcing a retreat.
Death
ISIL supporters used the Arabic hashtag #SuggestAWayToKillTheJordanianPilotPig on Twitter,
crowdsourcing and publicizing their execution of al-Kasasbeh. A film released by the group showed al-Kasasbeh was
burned to death by ISIL members in January 2015.
His killing was recorded on video and shown near the end of a 22-minute "
snuff film
A snuff film, or snuff movie, or snuff video, is a type of film that shows, or purports to show, scenes of actual homicide. The concept of snuff films became known to the general public during the 1970s, when an urban legend alleged that a cland ...
" entitled ''Healing the Believers' Chests'', credited to the ISIL official
Al Furqan Media Foundation and distributed via a Twitter account known as a source for ISIL propaganda, and on video-sharing sites.
The video shows him with a
black left eye, first at a table and then confined in a black steel cage outdoors and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, before an ISIL militant set alight a trail doused in
gasoline
Gasoline (; ) or petrol (; ) (see ) is a transparent, petroleum-derived flammable liquid that is used primarily as a fuel in most spark-ignited internal combustion engines (also known as petrol engines). It consists mostly of organic com ...
leading towards the cage. He was burned alive while numerous armed ISIL fighters in sand-colored
balaclavas and desert camouflage watched on from a distance. A
wheel loader
A loader is a heavy equipment machine used in construction to move or load materials such as soil, rock, sand, demolition debris, etc. into or onto another type of machinery (such as a dump truck, conveyor belt, feed-hopper, or railroad car) ...
finally extinguished the fire by dumping rocks and sand on it.
Before he was burned to death, al-Kasasbeh was made to reveal the names and workplaces of a number of his fellow Royal Jordanian Air Force pilots.
Their names and photographs were displayed at the end of the video, with an ISIL bounty offer of 100
gold dinar
The gold dinar ( ar, ﺩﻳﻨﺎﺭ ذهبي) is an Islamic medieval gold coin first issued in AH 77 (696–697 CE) by Caliph Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan. The weight of the dinar is 1 mithqal ().
The word ''dinar'' comes from the Lat ...
s (approximately $20,000) for each Jordanian Air Force pilot killed.
Most Western media outlets refused to show the full video, sometimes describing it or showing images immediately preceding al-Kasasbeh's
immolation
Immolation may refer to:
*Death by burning
*Self-immolation, the act of burning oneself
*Immolation (band), a death metal band from Yonkers, New York
*'' The Immolation'', a 1977 novel by Goh Poh Seng
*''Dance Dance Immolation'', an interactive pe ...
.
Fox News
The Fox News Channel, abbreviated FNC, commonly known as Fox News, and stylized in all caps, is an American multinational conservative cable news television channel based in New York City. It is owned by Fox News Media, which itself is own ...
posted the complete video on its website.
The Jordanian government assessed that al-Kasasbeh was killed by burning on 3 January, rather than 3 February, when the video was released on Twitter. This confirmed that the ISIL never intended to exchange him for al-Rishawi. Other news reports suggest that he may have been killed a few days later, on 8 January, according to a tweet posted by a Syrian activist from Raqqa that day claiming he saw individuals from ISIL celebrating the death of al-Kasasbeh on 8 January.
It was reported that al-Kasasbeh was deprived of food beginning five days before he was killed.
On 25 February 2015, al-l'tisam, a media arm of ISIL, released a video entitled ''Message to Jordan''. It showed new excerpts from the video of al-Kasasbeh's burning.
According to a former ISIL militant and a former Yazidi slave, senior ISIL leader
Abu Mohammad al-Adnani personally participated in the killing of al-Kasasbeh.
Reaction
Al-Kasasbeh's killing provoked outrage in Jordan; even some of those who had been opposed to the country's participation in airstrikes against ISIL started demanding revenge.
King
Abdullah II
Abdullah II bin Al-Hussein ( ar, عبدالله الثاني بن الحسين , translit=ʿAbd Allāh aṯ-ṯānī ibn al-Ḥusayn; born 30 January 1962) is King of Jordan, having ascended the throne on 7 February 1999. He is a member of t ...
cut short a visit to the United States, and the Jordanian government announced that all prisoners in its custody who had been convicted of association with ISIL would be executed "within hours" in retaliation for al-Kasasbeh's killing. In further response, Mamdouh al-Ameri, a
Jordanian military spokesman, said: "While the military forces mourn the martyr, they emphasize his blood will not be shed in vain. The revenge will be as big as the calamity that has hit Jordan."
On 4 February 2015, al-Rishawi and another Iraqi jihadist who was also on death row,
Ziad Khalaf al-Karbouly, were executed by
hanging
Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging ...
in Swaqa Prison, expedited in response to al-Kasasbeh's death.
Later on 4 February, Jordan launched its first military response to al-Kasasbeh's killing. Jordanian warplanes bombed ISIL positions in
Mosul
Mosul ( ar, الموصل, al-Mawṣil, ku, مووسڵ, translit=Mûsil, Turkish: ''Musul'', syr, ܡܘܨܠ, Māwṣil) is a major city in northern Iraq, serving as the capital of Nineveh Governorate. The city is considered the second large ...
, killing 55 ISIL fighters, including a senior commander. The following day, Jordan launched airstrikes against ISIL weapons and ammunition warehouses and training camps. According to U.S. officials, the attacks took place near
Raqqa
Raqqa ( ar, ٱلرَّقَّة, ar-Raqqah, also and ) ( Kurdish: Reqa/ ڕەقە) is a city in Syria on the northeast bank of the Euphrates River, about east of Aleppo. It is located east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, R ...
and involved 20 Jordanian F-16s, with American refueling and
radio jamming
Radio jamming is the deliberate jamming, blocking or interference with wireless communications.https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-12-347A1.pdf Enforcement Advisory No. 2012-02 FCC Enforcement Advisory Cell Jammers, GPS Jammers, and O ...
aircraft assisting. After the jets completed their mission, they overflew al-Kasasbeh's hometown of Karak while on their way back to base. The
Jordan Radio and Television Corporation
Jordan Radio and Television Corporation (JRTV) is the state broadcaster of Jordan. It was formed in 1985 after the merger between Jordan Radio and Jordan Television.
Jordan's first radio broadcasts were received from other countries in the Mid ...
aired footage shot prior to those attacks, of pilots scribbling messages onto bombs slated to be used in the strikes. "For you, the enemies of Islam," read one message. Others bore verses from the
Quran
The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...
. In 3 days of bombardment, Jordanian fighter jets destroyed 56 ISIL targets and killed dozens of ISIL fighters.
Several clerics, leading figures of the Islamic world and news outlets roundly condemned the killing as murder. However, ISIL said it could be justified through
Islamic law
Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the H ...
, despite cremation being illegal per Islamic law.
The Jordanian branch of the
Muslim Brotherhood
The Society of the Muslim Brothers ( ar, جماعة الإخوان المسلمين'' ''), better known as the Muslim Brotherhood ( ', is a transnational Sunni Islamist organization founded in Egypt by Islamic scholar and schoolteacher Hassan ...
, the
Islamic Action Front
The Islamic Action Front ( ar, جبهة العمل الإسلامي ''Jabhat al-'Amal al-Islami'', IAF) is an Islamist political party in Jordan. It is the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan.
Founded in 1992 with 350 members, En ...
, condemned the killing of al-Kasasbeh. Their statement described it as a "crime", without mentioning ISIL. The IAF's leader, Sheikh Hammam Saïd, in a 5 February interview with
Radio Sawa
Radio Sawa ( ar, راديو سوا) is a Middle Eastern radio station broadcasting in the Arab world. The station is a service of the Middle East Broadcasting Networks, Inc., which also operates Alhurra Television and is publicly funded by the ...
, asked Jordan to withdraw from the anti-ISIL coalition, saying "Jordan should not be part of a coalition run by the United States."
Sheikh Salam Salameh, a
Hamas
Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni- Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Br ...
member of the
Palestinian Legislative Council
The Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) is the unicameral legislature of the Palestinian Authority, elected by the Palestinian residents of the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It currently comprises 132 members, e ...
(PLC), said "IS members are, in one way or another, considered Muslims and we must not stand with the enemies of
Allah
Allah (; ar, الله, translit=Allāh, ) is the common Arabic word for God. In the English language, the word generally refers to God in Islam. The word is thought to be derived by contraction from '' al- ilāh'', which means "the god", a ...
against the people of Allah (the IS)." He added, "Jordan is the reason for al-Kasasbeh having been burned. It was the Jordanian government's decision to send its army into
Syria
Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...
to assist the
yriangovernment against the rebels in their war, in which it
ordanhas no interest. It should have adopted a similar position to
Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with a small portion on the Balkan Peninsula in ...
."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kasasbeh, Muath Al
1988 births
2015 deaths
Foreign hostages in Syria
Filmed executions
People killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
Royal Jordanian Air Force personnel
Jordanian Sunni Muslims
People from Al Karak
2014 in Syria
2015 in Syria
People executed by burning
Jordanian involvement in the Syrian civil war