response, Jordan authorities executed at dawn Wednesday two Iraqi terror convicts just hours after Islamic State militants released a video showing a Jordanian pilot burned to death in a cage.
The hangings underscored the hardening stance by officials in Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the fight against Islamic States, after street protests calling for revenge against the militant group.
The backlash from the video — released while Jordan’s King Abdullah II was holding talks in Washington — also threatened to draw the usually cautious monarch toward ever more direct confrontation with radical Islamists.
[The chilling reason the Islamic State burned the pilot alive]
Jordan’s chief government spokesman said the two prisoners executed included Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman convicted for a role in a deadly 2005 terrorist attack in Amman and was sought by the Islamic State as part of a possible prisoner swap.
Jordan’s king meets with U.S. senators before returning home(0:45)
Jordan’s King Abdullah cut short his U.S. visit after the Islamic State released a video appearing to show a captive Jordanian pilot being burned alive.
The other inmate was Ziad al-Karbouli, who was linked to a terror attack against Jordanians in Iraq in 2005 and whose freedom was also demanded by the Islamic State.
The executions were carried out less than 12 hours after the video was posted online.
Rishawi had been on death row for her role in a triple hotel bombing in the Jordanian capital that killed 60 people. Rishawi has been part of a part of offers for prisoner exchanges that would include the pilot, Lt. Muath al-Kaseasbeh, and a Japanese journalist held by the Islamic States.
But hopes collapsed Sunday with a video showing the beheading of the reporter. Later, Jordanian officials said the pilot was already dead — killed a month ago — even as attempts were made for “proof of life” evidence from the militants, which are also known by the acronyms ISIL and ISIS.
The Jordanian military has vowed “punishment and revenge” for the killing.
The Jordanian public was stunned by the brutality of the videotaped slaying, the latest killing of a hostage by the Islamic State. The previous killings of foreigners by the Islamic State were all beheadings, but the latest video appeared to show the 26-year-old pilot doused with flammable liquid and burned alive in a cage.
