Jordan: Pilot's father pleads IS to treat him as a guest

Amman, Dec 26: The captured Jordanian pilot's father has pleaded that his son be treated as a guest and not as a captive. Held hostage by members of the Islamic State, first Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh, 27 landed amid his captors after his plane crashed in Syria on Wednesday during a bombing mission against the militants.

Refusing to consider his son a hostage, the father said that he should be treated as a guest as he too is a Sunni Muslim. Kasaesbeh belomgs to a prominent Jordanian Sunni Muslim family and is the first pilot from the international coalition known to have been captured by Islamic State.

Incidentally, the Sunni Muslim jihadist group has a record of killing enemy soldiers that it captures on the battlefield. Many of the captives it has held are Shi'ites or non-Muslims, but they have also slaughtered Sunnis for fighting alongside enemies.

[Read: Jordan warns IS of grave consequences if captured pilot harmed]

Pleading to the IS, his father, Saif al-Kasaesbeh, told Reuters Television said,"I do not want to describe him as a hostage. I call him a guest."

He further said,""He is a guest among brothers of ours in Syria Islamic State. I ask them - by the name of God and with the dignity of the prophet Mohammed, peace be upon him - to receive him as a guest of his hosts and treat him well."

OneIndia News