Pilot read Qur’an before mission
Karak , Jordan • The night before Moaz al-Kasaesbeh was due to leave on his mission to Syria, the Jordanian air force pilot woke early with his wife to pray.
He was about to fly his F-16 fighter jet on a bombing raid against the jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and alSham and wanted to convince her he would be safe.
“Moaz and his wife used to read 10 pages of the Qur’an together every day,” said Hassan Kasaesbeh, the pilot’s cousin and friend. “That morning he read five, promising her they would read the rest on his return.”
Hours later, Lieut. Kasaesbeh, 26, was captured when his plane crashed over Raqqa, the ISIS stronghold, and his family was propelled into the nightmare of anxiety and horror that peaked with the video, published this week, showing the jihadists burning him alive.
The footage, the latest and most extreme in a series of killings of captured foreigners, has provoked a national outpouring of grief and rage in Jordan.
King Abdullah and Queen Rania were among the hundreds of mourners who flocked to Karak, Lieut. Kasaesbeh’s home town, Thursday to pay their personal condolences to his family.
In the shade of the marquee where just a few months before the young pilot had celebrated his wedding, the tribe’s men gathered around as the king spoke quietly with Safi al-Kasaesbeh, his father.
“The king told me that all Jordanians have unified behind Moaz. He promised, ‘We will hit back hard,’ ” the father said.
Jordanian fighter jets, reportedly the same ones that have flown sorties in Syria as part of the U.S.-led coalition attacks on ISIS, roared high overhead, swooping down periodically in a coordinated display.
Earlier, they had been in action again. The fly-past was ordered as the pilots returned from a bombing mission against ISIS targets, in immediate retaliation for the killing.
“The Jordanian air force launched raids against positions of the Islamic State group,” a spokesman said.
In Karak, in a separate tented hall across the road from the king, Queen Rania sat with female mourners. The air was filled with the ululations of the pilot’s wife, sisters and other relations. His mother had been taken to hospital, delirious with grief, mourners said.
Jordan’s participation in the coalition air strikes had been domestically controversial, with some citizens of this mostly Sunni country against the bombing of fellow Muslims.
Safi Kasaesbeh had previously said he was against his son taking part in the attacks.
Lieut. Kasaesbeh himself had been torn on whether to participate, said Hassan Kasaesbeh, his cousin.
“He went to see the Grand Mufti [Jordan’s top Islamic scholar] to ask if it was right for him to take part,” he added.
Immediately af t er the video of his killing was published online, some members of the Kasaesbeh tribe, angry their relation had been deployed on the mission, burned down the office of the Karak deputy governor.
But that anger appeared to be momentary and was quickly supplanted with a desire for revenge on his killers.
“He died for his nation. We hope that he sets an example for all Jordanians,” said Abdul Karim Kasaesbeh, 75, his uncle. “We have to go after them.”
Social media suggest the death of the young pilot has galvanized many Jordanians into supporting the king in the mission.
But the monarch still needs to balance the competing demands of Jordanian society, which comprises rural Bedouin, urban dwellers often influenced by Islamism, Palestinian refugees who make up half the population, and a new influx of Syrians and Iraqis.