The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria did not shoot down a plane being flown by a Jordanian pilot conducting airstrikes on the terrorist group’s targets in northeastern Syria, U.S. Central Command said in a statement released late Wednesday afternoon, though they confirmed that ISIS is holding the pilot captive.
It is the first time the Islamic State has held an allied troop hostage since the U.S.-led coalition bombing began in the late summer.
“A Jordanian F-16 aircraft crashed in the vicinity of the northern Syrian city of Ar-Raqqah on Wednesday and the pilot has been taken captive by [ISIS] forces,” U.S. Central Command announced in an emailed statement. “Evidence clearly indicates that [ISIS] did not down the aircraft as the terrorist organization is claiming.”
The statement also quoted the commander of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who is overseeing coalition military operations in Iraq and Syria, praising the valued role the Jordanians are playing in the ongoing operation against ISIS, vowing to support the pilot’s safe recovery and condemning efforts by the terrorist group to misrepresent or exploit his capture to bolster its image.
“The Jordanians are highly-respected and valued partners and their pilots and crews have performed exceptionally well over the course of this campaign,” he said. “We strongly condemn the actions of [ISIS] which has taken captive the downed pilot. We will support efforts to ensure his safe recovery, and will not tolerate [ISIS’s] attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes.”
Earlier on Wednesday, the Islamic State reportedly released a photo they said showed a Jordanian pilot their fighters captured after shooting down his warplane with an anti-aircraft missile near Raqqah, the self-declared Islamic State capital city in northern central Syria.
The Jordanian Armed Forces acknowledged in a website post that one of their pilots had been captured and provided a military photo of him in uniform.
“Jordan holds [ISIS] and its supporters responsible for the safety of the pilot and his life,” the post said, quoting a Jordanian military source without specifying whether the plane had crashed or was shot out of the sky.
A Jordan Times article later said the Jordan Armed Forces confirmed that one of its warplanes was shot down as it was dropping bombs near Raqqa, and that Kasasbeh’s family said the Islamic State was holding him.
The Jordanian government also told the paper that the capture of one of its own would not affect its involvement in the coalition’s airstrikes or other attempts to degrade and destroy the Islamic State.
“The government pledged to continue [the] war on terrorism in defending Islam,” the paper said.
The U.S. government issued a brief statement expressing sympathy for the pilot and his family.
“The United States is working closely with the government of Jordan concerning the Jordanian pilot captured today,” said State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki. “Our hearts and prayers go out to the pilot, his family and our partners in the Jordanian Armed Forces.”
The Islamic State identified the pilot as Mu’ath Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh and published photos of him, one in a wet shirt surrounded by water and another being carried off by a throng of Islamic State fighters, according to SITE Intelligence group, which obtained the images. In another, a jubilant Islamic State fighter holds up what appears to be two pieces of the crashed airplane.
A previous public update from Combined Joint Task Force for the ongoing operation against ISIS listed the sites of airstrikes conducted Wednesday, including one near Raqqah on an Islamic State “weapons stockpile.” It also said all aircraft returned to base safely, but a corrected version issued less than a half an hour later omitted that line.
