Muath al-Kasasbeh

Muath Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh (معاذ صافي يوسف الكساسبة South Levantine pronunciation: ; 29 May 1988 – c. 3 January 2015 ) was a Jordanian fighter pilot who was captured and burned to death by the militant group ISIL after his F-16 fighter aircraft crashed over Syria.

Originally, it was proposed to trade him and a kidnapped Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, for Sajida al-Rishawi, a failed Iraqi suicide bomber incarcerated in Jordan since she took part in the 2005 Amman hotel bombings, and sentenced to death.

The Jordanian government insisted on proof that al-Kasasbeh was still alive before it could proceed with a swap.

ISIL refused and published the video of his killing.

In 2009, al-Kasasbeh graduated from the King Hussein Air College and joined the Royal Jordanian Air Force.

He completed his F-16 training in the Royal Jordanian Air Force, and by 2012 had qualified as an operational F-16 pilot and was assigned to No. 1 Squadron at Muwaffaq Salti Air Base.

At the time of his capture, al-Kasasbeh was a first lieutenant.

He was posthumously promoted to the rank of captain.

Al-Kasasbeh's fighter crashed near Raqqa, Syria, on 24 December 2014 during the military intervention against the Islamic State.

United States and Jordanian officials said that the crash was caused by mechanical problems, while ISIL claimed that the plane was hit by a heat-seeking missile.

Al-Kasasbeh married engineer Anwar al-Tarawneh in September 2014.

Prior to his capture, al-Kasasbeh lived in the village of Ay in the Karak Mountains in Karak Governorate, 90 mi south of Amman.

The plane al-Kasasbeh was piloting, a Lockheed Martin F-16 formerly used by the Royal Belgian Air Force, crashed after suffering from mechanical problems on 24 December 2014 during a bombing raid on a brick factory during the military intervention against the Islamic State.

The Jordanian government said a technical failure caused him to eject after flying at low altitude, but the Islamic State claimed it shot down his aircraft.

He ejected and parachuted into a lake near Raqqa, Syria.

He was quickly captured by Islamic State militants and pulled from the water.

US officials state they initiated a search and rescue mission, but they did not locate him before he was captured.

On 30 December 2014, al-Kasasbeh appeared in a detailed interview with ISIL's Dabiq magazine.

Unsuccessful negotiations took place for his release.

His family applied pressure on the Jordanian government to arrange for his release.

ISIL held al-Kasasbeh captive before killing him in early January 2015.

It then conducted negotiations with the Jordanian government, claiming it would spare al-Kasabeh's life and free Japanese journalist Kenji Goto in exchange for Sajida al-Rishawi, a woman sentenced to death by Jordan for attempted terrorism and possessing explosives.

After the Jordanian government insisted on freeing al-Kasasbeh as part of the deal and showing proof that he was alive before it would exchange al-Rishawi, ISIL released a video on 3 January 2015 showing al-Kasasbeh being burned to death while trapped inside a cage.

Al-Kasasbeh's killing provoked widespread outrage in Jordan, and condemnation by leading figures of the Islamic world and subsequently led the Jordanian government to execute two Iraqi militants on death row (including al-Rishawi, who ISIL had requested in exchange for al-Kasasbeh) in retaliation over the killing.

In direct retaliation, King Abdullah ordered the executions of condemned terrorists Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad Al-Karbouly, as well as Operation Martyr Muath, a series of airstrikes that killed a number of ISIL militants over the course of three days.

Muath (often called "Moaz" in English language media) Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh was one of eight children, including an elder brother, Jawdat Safi al-Kasasbeh, born to Issaf and Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh, a retired education professor, in Al Karak, Jordan.

He was a Sunni Muslim.

The al-Kasasbehs are a prominent Jordanian family of the influential Sunni Muslim Bararsheh tribe from southern Jordan.

His uncle, Fahed al-Kasasbeh, was a Major General in the Royal Jordanian Army.

A military operation to free al-Kasasbeh, possibly by Jordanian special forces, may have been made on 1 January 2015.

Members of an anti-ISIL group in Raqqa, named Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said they witnessed coalition jets bombing targets in Raqqa in some of the fiercest strikes of the anti-ISIL campaign, while four helicopters dropped off soldiers wearing purported Jordanian Army uniforms.

The mission was aborted when ISIL fighters in the area began firing anti-aircraft missiles at the helicopters, forcing a retreat.

ISIL supporters used the Arabic hashtag #SuggestAWayToKillTheJordanianPilotPig on Twitter, crowdsourcing and publicizing their execution of al-Kasasbeh.

A film released by the group showed al-Kasasbeh was burned to death by ISIL members in January 2015.

His killing was recorded on video and shown near the end of a 22-minute "snuff film" entitled Healing the Believers' Chests, credited to the ISIL official Al Furqan Media Foundation and distributed via a Twitter account known as a source for ISIL propaganda, and on video-sharing sites.

The video shows him with a black left eye, first at a table and then confined in a black steel cage outdoors and dressed in an orange jumpsuit, before an ISIL militant sets alight a trail doused in gasoline leading towards the cage.

The video shows him burned alive while numerous armed ISIL fighters in sand-colored balaclavas and desert camouflage watch on from a distance.

A wheel loader finally extinguishes the fire by dumping rocks and sand on it.

Before he was burned to death, al-Kasasbeh was made to reveal the names and workplaces of a number of his fellow Royal Jordanian Air Force pilots.

Their names and photographs were displayed at the end of the video, with an ISIL bounty offer of 100 gold dinars (approximately $20,000) for each Jordanian Air Force pilot killed.