February 5, 2015 / /
King Abdullah of Jordan vowed that his country would strike the Islamic State with earth shattering vengeance in response to the murder of 1LT Muath al-Kasaesbeh (variant: Moaz al-Kasasbeh) by the Islamic State. The 26 year old Jordanian pilot was burned alive in a cage by the savage Islamic State terrorist army on an unknown date suspected to have been in early January. The young pilot had been captured in December when his F-16 crashed in Syria.
The Islamic State had released the horrific video during King Abdullah’s state visit to Washington DC while he was meeting with US president Barack Obama. The Jordanian leader cut his visit short in response to the video and requested the US immediately step up aid to Jordan and efforts to destroy the Islamic State.
By dawn on Wednesday Jordan had hung two Al Qaeda linked terrorists. One of those terrorists was the female would be suicide bomber Sajida al-Rishawi who had attempted to kill herself with her husband in a suicide bombing in Jordan in 2005. The second terrorist was Ziad Karbouli who was a senior aide to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi the deceased leader of the Al Qaeda in Iraq which was one of the precursors to the Islamic State. It is likely the Islamic State really did not care about these two individuals as they did not have any relative importance to the Islamic State itself.
Thursday (5 February 2015) approximately 30 aircraft from Jordan were said to have participated in the bombing campaign in and around the stronghold of Raqqa, Syria where the Islamic State had shown the video of the murder of 1LT Kasaesbeh on large screens. The airstrikes are believed to have killed 55 militants and damaged a media outlet in Raqqa.
King Abdullah had reportedly quoted Clint Eastwood’s character William Munny in Unforgiven stating, “Any son of a bitch takes a shot at me, I’m not only going to kill him, I’m going to kill his wife and all his friends and burn his damn house down.”
The King was visiting the family of 1LT Muath al-Kasaebeh during the latter part of the mission when the fighters were returning from the mission and overflew the hometown of the murdered pilot. The father was reported to have said it was a good start, but was not enough. He stated that it would not be enough until the entire Islamic State had been destroyed.
The king also was at the Ministry of Defense meeting with military leaders consulting for future operations to be carried out against the Islamic State as this is just the beginning of Jordan’s response to the brutal murder of their heroic son according to King Abdullah. Jordan is not ruling out any option including the use of at least limited ground forces against the Islamic State.
Assessment: The savage murder of 1LT Kasaesbeh has galvanized the Jordanian people. The king may not have had the total support he had needed before the heinous murder of their young pilot, but this incident has enraged even fence sitters and those that were not supportive of being in the coalition against the Islamic State.
King Abdullah is a determined leader with the intestinal fortitude and military background himself to see actions through. He may be the right leader thrust into the position of great responsibility at the precise time to galvanize not only his own country, but the rest of the moderate Gulf States and Arab world to step up actions against the brutal Islamic State. Great men often do not ask to be placed into positions, but find themselves thrown into those situations due to circumstances and the brutal murder of 1LT Kasaesbeh may be that moment. The king is a seasoned military leader as well as an AH-1 Cobra Attack helicopter pilot.
This is the time for the United States to throw ALL the support that it can behind the Jordanian king and his military. They need the military hardware, training, technology and support to strike the Islamic State with the earth shattering response their king has promised their people. The United States and all coalition partners need to bring together as sizeable, fully capable, nimble combat search and rescue quick reaction force as was suggested before airstrikes had even began.
Aircraft have been lost in nearly every conflict since they have been introduced into armed conflict and it was only a matter of time before an aircraft went down in this one and this may not be the last one. There must be a force capable of rescuing a downed pilot and ready to launch on a moment’s notice. This is common sense and US military planners know this.
What message was the Islamic State sending with this horrendous video? The message stems back to the Islamic State’s videos “Flames of War” and “Soldiers of Truth” which had been released earlier. In each of these videos the narrator or the theme shows foreign troops from coalition forces and the United States engulfed in flames. The infamous words “The flames of war have already begun” in the video showing the execution of the Syrian soldiers near Menagh Airbase.
The lighting of the fuse by the Islamic State fighter in the murder of 1LT Kaseasbeh is symbolically igniting that fuse of the flames of war spreading to other Arab countries. The pilot being a symbol of the burning soldiers in the Flames of War video. It is also to target the audience of possible followers in the neighboring Arab states to spread the flames of war. This is why they list the names of pilots from Jordan in the video. In one of our earlier articles we spoke about the Islamic State targeting military and intelligence officials in Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
The Islamic State calculates everything it does and when it does it. It uses a marketing campaign as if it were selling a product. In this case that product is the ideology of the Islamic State. Imams in neighboring Arab states need to enforce the family values that made men like 1LT Kaseasbeh who stood for freedom, prosperity and tolerance of others and believed in the greater good. That HE is the role model Muslims should aspire should aspire to be.
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Also see:
- 11 photos showing King Abdullah II of Jordan being a total badass (businessinsider.com)
Published on Jun 11, 2014 by RHC JO
His Majesty King Abdullah II starts his day participating in a military special operations training exercises as Jump-Master