US hostage 'killed by Jordanian air strikes', claims Isil

By The Telegraph

The Islamic State (Isil) claimed last night that an American woman it had been holding hostage for nearly two years had been killed by a stray bomb launched in a Jordanian air strike. The jihadists provided no proof that Kayla Mueller, 26, had been killed and Jordan immediately dismissed the claim as a "PR stunt" intended to divide the international coalition. US intelligence was racing to try to verify the report amid fears that Isil may have murdered Ms Mueller and was trying to pin the blame on an American ally in the Arab world.

Ms Mueller was kidnapped in August 2013 while working as an aid worker inside Syria and Isil had previously demanded a several million dollar ransom for her release. The group reportedly put out a proof-of-life video last year, showing Ms Mueller in a hijab and pleading for her life. If her death is confirmed, she would be the fourth American and the first US woman to have died while in the captivity of the jihadist group.

Isil has previously lied about the state of its hostages and it spent weeks engaging in negotiations over the Jordanian pilot only for it to emerge they had in fact killed him last month. Jordan responded by executing two convicted terrorists, including a female suicide bomber whose explosives failed to blow up during a 2005 attack.

"The criminal Crusader coalition aircraft bombarded a site outside the city of ar-Raqqah today at noon while the people were performing the Friday prayer. The air assaults were continuous on the same location for more than an hour," Isil said. "It was confirmed to us the killing of an American female hostage by fire of the shells dropped on the site," it added, saying none of its fighters were killed in the attack.

The claim she was killed by a bomb was met with scepticism by US intelligence and Hussein Majali, the Jordanian interior minister, said the statement was intended to "drive a wedge between the coalition". "They tried to cause problems internally in Jordan and haven't succeeded. They are now trying to drive a wedge between the coalition with this latest low PR stunt," he said. A White House spokesman said it was "deeply concerned" by the reports but had not "seen any evidence that corroborates Isil's claim".

The FBI had previously asked that the media not name Ms Mueller but her name was released in the Isil statement. Dennis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, accidentally let her first name slip in an interview last month.

Ms Mueller gave a speech about her work three months before she was kidnapped and told an audience in her native Arizona that the Syrian people were desperate for the international community to come to their aid. "This is the reality for Syrians two and a half years on. When Syrians hear I'm an American, they ask, 'Where is the world?' All I can do is cry with them, because I don't know," she said.

The US had feared Isil might turn its attentions to Ms Mueller after murdering two Japanese citizens in the last several weeks and then releasing a graphic video of the Jordanian pilot being burned alive. "Kayla has spent her adult life traveling the world and helping those in need," her family said in a statement, detailing how she worked in India and with both Israelis and Palestinians before moving to the Turkish-Syrian border around Christmas 2012.

"Kayla found this work heartbreaking but compelling; she was extremely devoted to the people of Syria," they said. She is believed to have been kidnapped in the war-torn city of Aleppo, where she had travelled with her Syrian boyfriend.

Ms Mueller is the last known American hostage held by Isil following the deaths of the journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff and the aid worker Peter Kassig. Peter Theo Curtis, a journalist, was freed in August last year after talks brokered by Qatar. Unlike many European countries, neither the US nor Britain pays ransoms to free its citizens being held hostage.

Jordan Executes 2 Prisoners After ISIS Killing Of Pilot

By The Huffington Post

AMMAN, Jordan (AP) — Jordan's king rushed home Wednesday, cutting short a U.S. trip, to rally public support for even tougher strikes against the Islamic State group after the militants released a video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned to death in a cage.

The gruesome killing of 26-year-old Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh, captured while participating in airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition targeting the militants, sparked outrage across the Middle East and anti-Islamic State protests in Jordan.

King Abdullah II, a staunch Western ally, returned home from a White House meeting with President Barack Obama during which both leaders affirmed their resolve to destroy the militants who have seized about one-third of Syria and Iraq.

Jordan believes the international community must intensify the campaign against Islamic State, said government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani. "This evil can and should be defeated," he said.

However, public opinion in Jordan has been ambiguous — growing demands for revenge against the militants have been mixed with misgivings about Jordan's role in a bombing campaign widely seen as serving Western interests.

The extremists, meanwhile, appeared to be goading Jordan. In Raqaa, the Islamic State group's de facto capital, the militants gleefully played al-Kaseasbeh's slaying on outdoor projectors, with some chanting "God is great," according to militant video posted online Wednesday that conformed to Associated Press reporting of the event.

In the 20-minute video, the pilot displayed signs of having been beaten, including a black eye. Toward the end of the clip, he is shown wearing an orange jumpsuit. He stands in an outdoor cage as a masked militant ignites a line of fuel leading to it.

The video, released on militant websites and bearing the logo of the extremist group's al-Furqan media service, featured the slick production and graphics used in previous Islamic State videos. It could not independently be confirmed by the AP.

After the video's release, a wave of condemnation washed across the Middle East, signaling that the Islamic State militants might have overplayed their hand by putting their brutality toward a fellow Muslim on display. Some said this could trigger a backlash among Sunni Muslims in the region, the main reservoir of potential IS supporters.

Abdullah al-Muhaysni, a prominent Saudi sheik with close links to jihadi groups, said on his Twitter account that while he believes those carrying out airstrikes against the Islamic State group deserve to be killed, the Jordanian pilot's immolation was too barbaric and generated sympathy for the man.

"After millions of Muslims were cursing every pilot, with this act they (IS) have made the burned one a symbol," the cleric wrote. "They made everyone who was reluctant to participate in the Crusader campaign (against IS) adjust his opinion and decide to participate."

At the same time, Jordan faces increasing internal and external threats from the militants. It borders areas of Islamic State group's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. There also have been signs of greater support for the group's militant ideas among Jordan's young and poor.

Following the pilot's death, Jordan launched what it said would be a tough campaign against the Islamic State group. In a first response, Jordan executed Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, two Iraqis linked to al-Qaida, government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani said. Another official said they were executed by hanging. Authorities said the pair would be buried later in Jordan.

Al-Rishawi had been sentenced to death after her 2005 role in a triple hotel bombing that killed 60 people in Amman orchestrated by al-Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of the Islamic State group. Al-Karbouly was sent to death row in 2008 for plotting terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq.

Islamic State group militants purportedly had demanded Jordan release al-Rishawi in exchange for the pilot. Over the past week, Jordan had offered to trade her, but froze any swap after failing to receive any proof that the pilot was still alive.

Jordan now believes that the airman was killed in the early days of January, said al-Momani, the government spokesman. He said the assessment is based on additional intelligence information but did not elaborate.

Al-Kaseasbeh had fallen into the hands of the militants when his F-16 crashed near Raqqa. He was the first airman participating in the U.S.-led bombing raids against militant positions in Syria and Iraq to be captured.

The pilot's father, Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh, urged his government to "take revenge for Muath and to take revenge for the country, even before Muath."

Late Tuesday, dozens of people chanting against Islamic State marched toward the royal palace in Amman. Waving a Jordanian flag, they chanted, "Damn you, Daesh!" — using the Arabic acronym of the group — and "We will avenge, we will avenge our son's blood."

Al-Kaseasbeh was from a tribal area in southern Jordan's Karak district. The tribes are considered a mainstay of support for the monarchy, but the pilot's capture strained that relationship. During the weeks of uncertainty about his fate, relatives criticized the government's handling of the crisis and Jordan's participation in the anti-Islamic State group alliance.

However, the tone has changed since the announcement of his death, with family members and other Jordanians speaking out against the militants.

"No religion accepts such an act," said Amman resident Hassan Abu Ali. "Islam is a religion of tolerance. They (IS militants) have nothing to do with Islam. This is a criminal act."

Across the Middle East, religious and political leaders offered angry denunciations and called for blood as some on television wept when talking about the pilot.

The head of Sunni Islam's most respected seat of learning, Egypt's Al-Azhar, described the militants as enemies of God and the Prophet Muhammad, saying they deserved the Quran-prescribed punishment of death, crucifixion or the chopping off of their arms.

"Islam prohibits the taking of an innocent life," Ahmed al-Tayeb, Al-Azhar's grand sheik, said in a statement, adding that by burning the pilot to death, the militants violated Islam's prohibition on the mutilation of bodies, even during wartime.

The Islamic State group has released a series of gruesome videos showing the beheading of captives, including two American journalists, an American aid worker and two British aid workers. Tuesday's was the first to show a captive being burned alive.

The latest video was released three days after another video showed the purported beheading of a Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto. A second Japanese hostage was apparently killed earlier last month.

U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter Jr., a California Republican, said after a meeting with the king that Abdullah had been visibly angry and promised to retaliate against the militants.

"They're starting more sorties tomorrow than they've ever had. They're starting tomorrow," Hunter told the Washington Examiner in an interview published online Tuesday night.

Hunter added the king also said: "The only problem we're going to have is running out of fuel and bullets."