ISIS, the terror group known for issuing horrific videos of its members committing atrocities and sickening war crimes against defenseless prisoners, defended itself against the widespread anger that resulted from its latest video, in which a captured Jordanian pilot was shown being burned alive by ISIS executioners — then buried under a pile of rubble by a bulldozer.
The video released on to the internet February 3 depicted 26-year-old pilot Moaz al-Kasabeh imprisoned in a cage, where he was doused in gasoline and set on fire by his ISIS captors. The video produced immediate revulsion not only in the West — which has seen several of its own ISIS captives murdered in videotaped beheadings — but in the Muslim world as well, with even the government of Iran issuing a statement condemning the murder as “inhumane and un-Islamic.”
Another terrorist group, the Lebanese-based Hezbollah, condemned the death-by-burning of al-Kasabeh as “the most gruesome” atrocity yet comitted by ISIS, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who has been accused of covertly supporting ISIS by allowing the terror group’s recruits to cross Turkish borders into Syria — also expressed disgust with the videotaped murder.
“I curse and damn the burning of the Jordanian pilot,” Erdogan said.
Perhaps in response to what may have been an unexpectedly strong condemnation from other Muslims, ISIS used the latest issue of its propaganda magazine Dabiq to defend the burning of a living human being .
“In burning the crusader pilot alive and burying him under a pile of debris, the Islamic State carried out a just form of retaliation for his involvement in the crusader bombing campaign which continues to result in the killing of countless Muslims who, as a result of these airstrikes, are burned alive and buried under mountains of debris,” an article in Issue 7 of Dabiq stated.
The article went on to attempt to justify the burning of al-Kasabeh in religious terms, saying that the ISIS killers “followed the footsteps of Allah’s Messenger … in his harshness towards the disbelievers.”
“Allah’s messenger” refers to the prophet Mohammed, Islam’s founder and most sacred figure other than Allah — that is, God.
The article is titled “The Burning of the Murtadd (Apostate) Pilot,” and also accuses the Muslim critics of the ISIS burning of the Jordanian pilot of “masquerading as supporters of the mujahidin” and saying they are “always amongst the first to speak out in any case where the mujahidin display their harshness towards the crusaders.”