Militants from the Islamic State extremist group have captured a Jordanian fighter pilot, Jordan's state news service reported on Wednesday after reports that the pilot's plane was shot down over northern Syria.
Shooting down a fighter jet from the United States-led coalition against the Islamic State would be a first for the group.
The pilot’s capture is also a coup that could shake the resolve of the Arab countries in the coalition, which began bombing Islamic State sites in Iraq and Syria this year.
The Jordanian military said in a statement reported by Petra, the country’s state-run news service, that one of its pilots had been taken hostage and that the Jordanian government held the group and its supporters responsible for his safety.
It said that his plane “went down” while Jordanian jets were carrying out a mission aimed at Islamic State sites near Raqqa, in northern Syria.
Earlier Wednesday, supporters of the Islamic State reported the capture on social media, saying it happened after the pilot’s plane was shot down, and posting photos of the jet’s debris and of the captured pilot in a white T-shirt and surrounded by masked gunmen.
They also posted his military identification card, which gave his name as First Lt. Moaz Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh. American officials have lauded the contributions of their Arab allies, but also acknowledge that most of the strikes have been carried out by the United States, with its partners often playing a supporting role.
Those partners, Bahrain, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have avoided elaborating on their role in the campaign, mostly over fears of retribution by the Islamic State or to avoid domestic opposition from citizens who sympathise with the extremists.
Jordanian news outlets spoke with the captive pilot’s father, Yousef al-Kasasbeh, who said Jordanian officials had informed family members that their son had been captured and that Jordan’s military was doing it all it could to ensure his return.
It remained unclear whether the capture would affect the participation of Jordan and other Arab countries in the fight against the Islamic State, but the group will most likely use it to its advantage.
The group has used hostages to negotiate prisoner swaps and to demand ransoms, and it has distributed grim videos of its fighters beheading Americans and Britons in what it has called revenge for those countries’ actions against it.
Raising another concern for the air campaign, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, said the militants had brought down the plane with an antiaircraft missile. While the Islamic State has reportedly seized such missiles from military bases it has captured in Iraq and Syria, it remains unclear how many the group has.
New York Times