Jordan will free Iraqi female bomber if ISIL releases pilot

No reference has been made by Jordan to Japanese hostage, Kenji Goto, who is also being held by the extremist group.

Safi Al Kaseasbeh and his wife sit in a car with pictures of their son, Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Maaz Al Kaseasbeh, who is being held by ISIL. Raad Adayleh/AP Photo

AMMAN // Jordan offered yesterday to free a woman jailed for a deadly bomb attack in exchange for an air force pilot held by ISIL.

“Jordan is ready to release the prisoner Sajida Al Rishawi if the Jordanian pilot is freed unharmed,” a government spokesman in Amman said.

“From the start, the position of Jordan was to ensure the safety of our son, the pilot Maaz Al Kassasbeh.”

ISIL released a video on Tuesday in which it threatened to kill Lt Al Kassasbeh and the Japanese journalist Kenji Goto unless Al Rishawi was freed within 24 hours.

Tokyo sought Jordan’s help after an ISIL video released at the weekend said another Japanese hostage, Haruna Yukawa, had been beheaded.

Japan has sent its deputy foreign minister Yasuhide Nakayama to Amman to head an emergency response team.

Al Rishawi has been on death row since 2006 for her part in triple hotel bombings in Amman that killed 60 people.

Lt Al Kassasbeh was captured on December 24 after his F-16 jet crashed on a mission over northern Syria.

Jordan is among a number of Arab and western countries that have joined US-led air raids against ISIL, which has seized large areas in Syria and neighbouring Iraq.

The pilot’s father Safi Kassasbeh and Goto’s mother urged their governments to save the two men’s lives.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe said the 24-hour deadline was “an utterly despicable act, and I am appalled”.

“The government, in this extremely serious situation, has been asking for the Jordanian government’s cooperation towards the early release of Mr Goto, and this policy remains unchanged,” Mr Abe said..

Goto’s mother, Junko Ishido, was at Japan’s parliament yesterday in a failed attempt to meet the prime minister. After being refused an appointment with Mr Abe, she issued a plea for her son’s life through media gathered there.

“Prime minister Shinzo Abe,” Ms Ishido said. “Please continue your utmost efforts in negotiating with the Jordanian government until the last minute. There is not much time left.”

Her anguish was mirrored in Jordan where Lt Al Kassasbeh’s father and several dozen members of the family’s Karak tribe held a demonstration outside government headquarters in Amman late on Tuesday.

They held his picture and a slogan reading: “We are all Maaz.”

“We have only one request, Maaz’s return at any price,” Safi Kassasbeh said.

In the latest video, Goto, a respected war reporter, is seen holding a photograph of Lt Al Kassasbeh, while a voice-over – purportedly spoken by the Japanese hostage – warns that Jordan is blocking his release.

However, any suggestion of a swap will probably face resistance from the United States.

US state department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said this week that a prisoner exchange was “in the same category” as paying a ransom.

ISIL has previously beheaded two US reporters, an American aid worker and two British aid workers, and committed numerous atrocities including mass executions, but the killing of Yukawa was the first time a Japanese citizen had been targeted.

* Agence France-Presse