State department spokeswoman: U.S. willing to offer Jordan more weapons

U.S. State Department deputy spokeswoman Marie Harf said on Friday that the Obama administration was willing to provide more weapons to the Jordanian government to fight against the extremist group "Islamic State" (IS).

"We are absolutely expediting any requests they have for military assistance and we're going to keep working with them on the shared fight together. This is something we're committed to," said Harf in an interview with CNN on Friday.

In an earlier interview with CNN, Senator John McCain, Chairman of the Armed Services Committee, criticized the U.S. State Department for creating "a huge bureaucratic bottleneck" for the Jordanians to get weapons.

However, Harf declined to respond whether the Jordanians would get any types of weapons they required.

In last October, the Obama administration reportedly denied a request from a major U.S. defense contractor for a license to sell its unarmed Predator drones to Jordan on national security grounds.

Jordan's request for more U.S.-made sophisticated weapons was viewed as more urgent after a Jordanian pilot previously held captive by IS was burned alive by the extremist group.

Jordan vowed to retaliate after the incident and has intensified its airstrikes on IS targets in Syria.

Meanwhile, IS claimed on Friday that a U.S. female hostage was killed during one of the Jordanian airstrikes on Raqqa, the group' s de facto capital in Syria.

Harf acknowledged at the daily briefing that some Americans are being held captive abroad by extremist groups, but she said she could not provide any additional information. Endite