by Farhad Chomani
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The cousin of a Jordanian pilot burned alive by the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria, told Rudaw that the gruesome images of the murder show that the jihadists had no intention of releasing the pilot, regardless of what the Jordanian government would have done.
Jordanian authorities were attempting to secure Lt. Maaz Kasasiba’s release through a prisoner swap involving the convicted female jihadist Sajida al-Rishawi. Rishawi and another convict jihadist, Ziad al-Karbouli, were executed before dawn Wednesday in reprisal.
“It was like a scene from a Hollywood movie,” Osama Kasasiba told Rudaw, referring to the high quality video of the horrific murder of his cousin. “It was all planned ahead and they wanted to create maximum fear among fellow Muslims,” he said.
Kasasiba said that authorities had obtained information that his cousin was killed a month earlier, but had no proof why the negotiations to exchange prisoners were going on till the end.
“If ISIS had the slightest intention of releasing him, they would have made the swap; but they wanted to murder him right from the start,” he said.
A key ally of the United States in the region, Jordan has struggled to justify its participation in the anti ISIS campaign to public opinion at home. But the murder of the young Jordanian pilot sparked outrage and street demonstrations against ISIS on Wednesday.
“Moaz Kasasiba is a martyr, not just for us the family, but also for the entire world and the Islamic world,” Kasasiba said. “He was murdered so savagely that it is impossible to describe.”
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