UAE suspends anti-IS airstrikes

A New York Times report that the Gulf Arab nation withdrew from airstrikes by a US-led 60-nation coalition was confirmed to news agencies late on Wednesday by several US security officials.

"I can confirm that UAE suspended airstrikes shortly after the Jordanian pilot's plane went down," an official told the news agencies AFP and Reuters, referring to the downing in late December.

Another senior US defense official said the UAE had urged the Pentagon to relocate its V-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft (pictured above) from Kuwait to northern Iraq, so that they are closer for rescue missions if further coalition planes go down.

The Ospreys can take off like helicopters but fly with the speed of a plane.

Officially, there has been no comment on the matter from the UAE, which, alongside Qatar and Bahrain, is one of the most visible Arab members of the 60-nation US-led coalition.

Location not decisive

The officials said the location of rescue aircraft was not a determining factor when the Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh went down over Syria and was quickly captured by IS on December 24.

They added that American pilots flying over IS-held territory faced the same risks.

On Tuesday, the Islamic State (IS) extremists posted grisly images showing the Jordanian airman being burned alive.

Jordan executes convicted militants

Jordan's King Abdullah late on Wednesday vowed a "relentless war" against the IS while a government spokesman said Jordan was preparing an "earth-shaking response" following the murder of al-Kasaesbeh.

At dawn on Wednesday Jordan executed two Iraqi militants, including an Iraqi woman convicted of involvement in a triple hotel bombing in Amman in 2005.

Condemnation

The video unleashed rage and grief across the Middle East, with religious and political leaders saying immolation violated Islam.

At Cairo's Sunni Al-Azhar Mosque, Grand Imam Ahmed al-Tayeb said by burning the pilot to death the IS militants had violated Islam's prohibition on the immolation or mutilation of bodies - even during wartime.

The president of Sunni-majority Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the murder of the pilot as an act of "savagery," adding that "there is no such thing in our religion."

The foreign ministry of Iran, which has aided both Iraq and Syria against IS, also said burning the pilot to death was an "inhumane" act that had violated the codes of Islam.

ipj/bk (AP, Reuters, AFP, dpa)