Jordan Executes 2 Militants in Response to Pilot's Killing.

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The Jordanian government  vowed “punishment and revenge” against Islamic State after the jihadi group released a video showing a Jordanian pilot they were holding hostage being burned to death inside a locked cage.

Barbaric: An ISIS extremist lights a trail of petrol leading to the cage in which the 26-year-old stands

Displaying a level of brutality shocking even by the standards of the group’s previous killings, the murder of First Lieutenant Muadh al-Kasasbeh is likely to heighten tensions further in Jordan, a key Arab member of US-led coalition against Isis. The kingdom has rounded up scores of jihadist sympathisers since the summer.

Jordan had responded immediately by scheduling for Wednesday the executions of five convicted terrorists, including the failed suicide bomber whom the group had wanted to trade.

Jordan has executed two prisoners, including a would-be female suicide bomber from al-Qaeda, a government spokesman has revealed this morning.

The executions at dawn today came just hours after Islamic State militants released a sickening video that showed a captured Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive in a cage.

Jordan vowed a swift and lethal response and it has emerged that two prisoners, Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouli, were executed early on Wednesday.

Al-Rishawi has been on death row for her role in a triple hotel bombing in the Jordanian capital Amman in 2005 that killed dozens.

Sajida al-Rishawi, whom Isis had wanted to swap for Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, was one of five death row inmates moved to a prison where executions take place in Jordan. The group was transferred to Wastaqa prison within hours of the horrific video being uploaded.

In a short televised address, Jordan’s King Abdullah II called Kasasbeh’s killing an act of “cowardly terror by a criminal group that has no relation to Islam. It’s the duty of all citizens to stand together.”

Abdullah cut short a visit to the United States to return home after the video was released but the White House said he would meet with Barack Obama before he left.

President Barack Obama (right) met late last night with King Abdullah II in the Oval Office of the White House, hours after the Moaz al-Kasasbeh was executed

Confirming the death of the pilot, Jordan’s army spokesman Col Mamdouh al-Ameri said in a televised statement that Jordan would deliver a “strong, earth-shaking” response.

Officials in Amman were also quick to react. “The military forces announce that the hero pilot, Muadh al-Kasasbeh, has fallen as a martyr, and ask God to accept him with the martyrs,” said armed forces spokesman Mamdouh al-Ameri.

“While the military forces mourn the martyr, they emphasise his blood will not be shed in vain. Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians.”

The US, which has led an airforce coalition against Isis, moved rapidly to denounce the killing, saying it would lead to a redoubling of efforts to degrade the terror group. Barack Obama said the video, if authenticated, would be another sign of the “viciousness and barbarity” of the militant group.

“Whatever ideology they’re operating off of, it’s bankrupt,” Obama told reporters. He added that the video would redouble the determination of the US-led coalition fighting the group in Syria and Iraq.

David Cameron condemned the pilot’s murder as “sickening” and said it would “strengthen our resolve” to defeat Isis.

The ordeal of Kasasbeh had captivated Jordan, with many of its citizens increasingly rallying behind the fight against the terror group after he was shot down.

However, at a tribal meeting place where the pilot’s relatives have waited for weeks for word on his fate, chants against Jordan’s king erupted and some family members wept after news of his death was announced. An uncle shouted in Arabic: “I received a phone call from the chief of staff saying God bless his soul.”

Before his death, Kasasbeh was forced to reveal the names and workplaces of many fellow pilots in the Royal Jordanian Air Force. Their photographs appeared at the end of a 23-minute video depicting his death, along with an offer of a bounty of 100 gold dinars (roughly $20,000) for each pilot killed.

In the video, which was widely circulated on Tuesday night, Kasasbeh, was walked through the ruins of a building, which appeared to have been destroyed by an air strike. He was then seen in a cage at the same site, with a line of flames, ignited by an Isis militant, creeping towards the cage, then engulfing him.

Earlier in the video, Kasasbeh, dressed in an orange jumpsuit, gave an account of his bombing run over Syria, which ended with his F-16 fighter jet crashing just outside the Isis stronghold of Raqqa.

Officials in Amman said Kasasbeh was killed on 3 January, around three weeks before Isis had offered to trade Goto for Rishawi, who was sentenced to death for a 2005 bombing campaign in central Amman.

The jihadis had not offered Kasasbeh for Rishawi, but had suggested that his life would be spared if she was handed over.

Jordanian officials baulked at the deal, despite the pleadings of Japanese leaders, insisting that Isis provide proof that he was still alive. As five tense days of discussions wore on, government officials increasingly hinted that Kasasbeh may have been killed and that the swap would not proceed.

Goto was beheaded, apparently a short time after a deadline of sunset last Thursday that was set by his captors for Rishawi to be delivered to them. He was the only pilot to have been shot down so far in the six-month air campaign, which has dropped more than 1,800 bombs on the terror group, slowing its momentum but not yet denying the group’s strategic goal of consolidating its hold over a swath of land the size of Jordan stretching from the eastern edge of Aleppo to central Iraq.Culled