Jordan has followed through on its vow of “earthshaking retaliation” against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Two days after the world learned that the Islamic State had burned a captive Jordanian pilot to death, the nation accelerated targeted airstrikes against the terror group Thursday.
After the fighter jets returned to Jordan from their mission, they flew over the home of the murdered 27-year-old pilot, First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh in the village of Ay in the Karak governorate, according to CNN.
His father, Safi al-Kasasbeh, said that King Abdullah II — who was in the family home at the time of the flyover to offer his condolences — pointed at the above fighter jets and told him directly they would avenge his son’s murder. The king allegedly told Safi al-Kasasbeh that 30 Jordanian fighter jets participated in the strikes, directed at the capital of Raqqa in Syria.
“The homeland is entrusted to you all,” Safi al-Kasasbeh said at the side of the king, in comments shown on Jordanian state television. “… For you [troops], to honor [Moaz] is to uphold your oath and to follow in his footsteps as soldiers for God, his prophet [and] Islam … in defending this dear homeland.”
“We will not let this crime of killing our pilots with the horrific way it was done pass without punishment,” Government spokesman Mohammed al-Momani told CNN on Thursday. “These people will be punished.”
Part of the U.S.-led coalition of airstrikes against the Islamic State, al-Kasasbeh was captured after his fighter jet went down in northern Syria in late December.
The video, released Tuesday, shows footage of Jordan’s role in the airstrikes, followed by the pilot standing in a cage before being burned alive.
