IS captures Jordanian pilot after plane downed over Syria
PUBLISHED ONDecember 25, 2014 1:21 AM
BEIRUT - The Islamic State group captured a Jordanian pilot Wednesday after his warplane from the US-led coalition was reportedly shot down while on a mission against the jihadists over northern Syria.
A senior Jordanian military official confirmed to the Petra news agency that "the pilot was taken hostage by the IS terrorist organisation" in Syria's Raqa region, a militant stronghold, early on Wednesday.
Jordan did not say why the plane crashed, but both the jihadists and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said it was shot with an anti-aircraft missile.
It was the first coalition warplane lost since air strikes on IS began in Syria in September.
Coalition warplanes have carried out regular strikes around Raqa, which IS has used as the headquarters for its self-declared "caliphate" after seizing control of large parts of Syria and Iraq.
The IS branch in Raqa published photographs on jihadist websites purporting to show its fighters holding the captured pilot.
One showed the pilot, wearing only a white shirt, being carried from a body of water by four men. Another showed him on land, surrounded by almost a dozen armed men.
A photograph was also released of the pilot's military identification card, showing his name as Maaz al-Kassasbeh, his birth date as May 29, 1988, and his rank of first lieutenant.
The jihadists claimed to have shot down the warplane with a heat-seeking missile.
Images distributed by IS supporters of the alleged aftermath of the crash appeared to show the distinctive canopy of an F-16 fighter jet.
Experts said the missile used might have been taken from Syrian rebels or from among weapons captured from Syrian and Iraqi troops.
Eliot Higgins, who posts detailed analyses of weapons in Syria and other conflicts on his blog, said IS is known to have several kinds of anti-aircraft weapons including Chinese-made and Soviet-era missiles.
Deadly Iraq suicide blast
The pilot's father, Youssef, was quoted by Jordanian news website Saraya as saying the family had been informed by the air force of his capture.
He said the military promised it was "working to save his life" and that Jordan's ruler, King Abdullah II, was following events.
Jordan is among a number of countries that have joined the US-led alliance carrying out air strikes against IS.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain are taking part in the air strikes in Syria alongside the United States.
The Sunni extremist IS has committed widespread atrocities in areas under its control, including mass executions and public beheadings.
An activist in Raqa said IS militants were divided over the fate of the pilot.
"The Chechens want him dead but the Iraqis want to keep him alive," Nael Mustafa told AFP via the Internet.
"For some time, there have been divisions among them over who should be in command." The decision would be made by the shura, or council, representing all nationalities in the Islamic State group.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon expressed concern and appealed for the pilot's captors to treat him humanely, his spokesman said.
Elsewhere in Syria, 10 people including six children were killed as they left rebel-held Zabdine in southeast Damascus for a regime area, said the Observatory.
In neighbouring Iraq, a suicide bomber attacked Sunnis opposed to IS as they gathered to receive salaries south of Baghdad, killing at least 26 people and wounding dozens.
And in the northern city of Kirkuk, a gunman killed the head of the provincial counter-terrorism forces.
The coalition first launched strikes against IS in August in Iraq, where the jihadists overran the country's Sunni heartland weeks earlier in a major offensive.
The coalition said it had carried out 10 strikes on Wednesday in Syria, including one near Raqa, where the Jordanian jet crashed, and seven in Iraq.
Iraqi security forces, backed by the strikes, Kurdish forces, Shiite militias, and Sunni tribesmen, have retaken some areas, but have been facing stiff resistance from the entrenched IS militants.
Some Sunni militiamen have joined the fight against IS and Wednesday's attack near a military base in the Madain area targeted Sunni fighters known as Sahwa.
The Sahwa, or "Awakening" in Arabic, date back to the height of the US-led war in Iraq, when Sunni tribesmen joined forces with the Americans to battle insurgents including IS's predecessor organisation, the Islamic State of Iraq.