IS sets new deadline for hostage exchange
Print Edition
An audio message purportedly from a Japanese journalist held by Islamic State militants said a Jordanian air force pilot also captured by the group would be killed unless a woman jailed in Jordan was released by sunset yesterday.
The message postponed a previous deadline set on Tuesday in which the journalist, Kenji Goto, said he would be killed within 24 hours if the Iraqi would-be suicide bomber in prison in Jordan was not freed. Roughly an hour before the new deadline was due to pass, government spokesman Mohammad al-Momani said Jordan was still holding Sajida al-Rishawi, who is on death row for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people in Amman.
“We want proof ... that the pilot is alive so that we can proceed with what we said yesterday — exchanging the prisoner with our pilot,” Momani said.
The pilot, Muath al-Kasaesbeh, was captured after his jet crashed in northeastern Syria in December during a bombing mission against Islamic State, which has seized large tracts of Syria and Iraq.
“...We have not received any evidence that Kasaesbeh is alive. This is what we asked and have not received any proof,” Momani said. He said separately that Jordan was coordinating with Japanese authorities in an effort to secure the release of Goto, a veteran war reporter also being held by the radical Islamists.
In the latest audio recording purportedly of Goto, he said that Kasaesbeh would be killed “immediately” if al-Rishawi was not at the Turkish border by sunset yesterday, Iraq time, ready to be exchanged for the Japanese hostage.
The implication that the Jordanian pilot would not be part of an exchange deal has left Jordan in a difficult position.
Any swap that left out the pilot would be deeply unpopular after officials insisted he was their priority, and could leave Amman subject to further demands from the militants. But refusing the ultimatum could heighten domestic opposition to Jordan’s unpopular role in the US-led military campaign against Islamic state.
Protests have erupted in Karak, hometown of the pilot, who is from an important Jordanian tribe that forms the backbone of support for the Hashemite monarchy.
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