Off the wire
• Death toll in Mozambican floods rises to 117  • Urgent: India sacks foreign secretary, names U.S. envoy as top diplomat  • Germany's benchmark DAX rises  • Albanian trade with Greece makes up 6.5 pct of overall volume  • Russia to lose 200 bln USD as economic shocks seep in  • UN chief condemns terrorist attack on Corinthia Hotel in Libya  • Foreign exchange rates of Euro to other currencies  • U.S.-led task force launches 19 airstrikes against IS in Syria, Iraq  • German firms tend to recruit additional staffs: Ifo  • French stock market index down 0.29 pct on Wednesday  
You are here: 　 Home

Jordan wants IS to prove captured pilot still alive

Xinhua, January 29, 2015 Adjust font size:

Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said Wednesday that his country wants the Islamic State (IS) to prove that an abducted Jordanian pilot was still alive.

"Jordan has asked the Islamic State (IS) to provide a proof of life for the Jordanian pilot it captured last year but we have not received a reply," the minister said in a statement.

Earlier in the day, the Jordanian government said it was willing to swap Sajida Rishawi, an Iraqi suicide bomber, with captured pilot Muath Kasasbeh.

Relatives of the pilot staged a protest Wednesday so as to press the government for a positive responding to the IS demands.

On Tuesday, the IS threatened to kill a Japanese hostage and the Jordanian pilot within 24 hours if the female suicide bomber was not released.

Also on Tuesday, Japanese freelance journalist Kenji Goto appeared in an online video while asking the Japanese government to exercise pressure on Jordan to hand over Rishawi, a suicide bomber who in 2005 failed to detonate an explosive belt she was wearing and was later arrested and sentenced to death.

Rishawi is an Iraqi woman who has close ties with Abu Musab Zarqawi, former leader of al-Qaida cell in Iraq. Endit