Feb. 04--On Dec. 24, a Jordanian F-16 flying as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State crashed in northeastern Syria. Militants captured the pilot.
In late January, Islamic State fighters -- the thugs responsible for parading and beheading other hostages -- threatened the pilot's life. He would be killed unless Jordan agreed to a prisoner swap. The warning came in an audio recording last week from Japanese journalist Kenji Goto, another Islamic State hostage who was soon to be executed.
On Tuesday we learned that the pilot is dead. We know how he died -- horribly, through an instrument of torture: immolation. If a Jordanian government report is accurate, we also know that any reference to the pilot in hostage negotiations was bogus. Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh was burned alive in a cage Jan. 3.
The pilot's murder is an outrage. We hope it also proves to be a grave miscalculation. The United States leads a military coalition against the Islamic State that includes a handful of Muslim states. Four conduct airstrikes alongside the U.S.: Bahrain, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They are crucial to the fight because they offer proof this is a war against terrorism, not against Islam. They also bring firepower and unique intelligence-gathering ability.
But it's no easy feat for Muslim countries to stand with the U.S. in a war the other side defines as jihad.
We hope momentum against the Islamic State now intensifies. When the militants killed the pilot, they were murdering not just an enemy but a fellow Muslim, and making a despicable show of it. The Islamic State released a 20-minute video showing the pilot, wearing an orange prisoner's jumpsuit, engulfed in flame.
The reaction from Jordan, a close U.S. ally in the war on terror, was immediate. Officials said the killing would strengthen Jordan's resolve. King Abdullah II of Jordan, speaking from Washington, denounced the Islamic State as a "cowardly terror group, this criminal gang" that has no relation to Islam.
Jordan's commitment to the fight against the Islamic State has faced political pressure and ruffled religious sensitivity. Many Jordanians had wondered why they were involved in a war in which they were not attacked. If the Islamic State had played its hand differently, and spared the pilot, it might have caused more equivocations. But the Islamic State prefers terror to logic. The terrorists think it's a more effective recruitment message.
We want the Islamic State finished off but know this war won't end quickly. The pilot's obscene death doesn't change that. After more than 1,000 airstrikes on Iraq and Syria, the U.S. is nowhere near achieving its goal of degrading or destroying the enemy. The Islamic State still holds vast territory across Syria and Iraq, including Mosul, one of Iraq's largest cities.
But there is progress: Kurdish fighters backed by airstrikes freed the Syrian city of Kobani. Iraq is trying to rebuild its forces to take on the Islamic State, with support from Iran. And now there's a jolt of focused anger over the pilot's death. Let the momentum build.
