Burning alive an innocent victim not ISIL's best PR move

Image courtesy of NY Daily News.

Juan Cole's comments are typically well informed (see Informed Comment). But you're required to actually think as you read his posts and to see issues from several perspectives. For example, in his February 4, 2015 post on the aftermath of ISIL's burning alive a captured Jordanian pilot, Cole reports that Jordan's citizens were not united in their response. Nevertheless, it's safe to say that setting fire to an innocent victim was not one of ISIL's best PR moves.

Jordanian protesters came out in the thousands on Tuesday to protest the gruesome murder by Daesh (ISIL, ISIL) of a captured Jordanian pilot, Muath al-Kasasbeh. He was from the central Jordanian town of Karak (pop. 70,000), 87 miles south of the capital of Amman, and crowds came out in its center last night. Protests were also mounted by the Kasasbeh clan, to which the victim belonged, demanding that Jordan leave the US-led coalition. Crowds also rallied in Amman. the capital.

While the masses were protesting Daesh’s cruelty to a fellow Jordanian, then, some of them also chanted against the Coalition that is bombing eastern Syria and even against the Jordanian regime for joining them in bombing Daesh positions in Syria and Iraq.

The Jordanian government responded to the news by abruptly executing Iraqi terrorist Sajida Rishawi and Ziad Karbouli, aid to the late al-Qaeda leader Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi. The two had been considered for a swap for the unlucky pilot.

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