Isis magazine publishes disturbing interview with captured pilot

Isis has published an interview purporting to be with the Jordanian pilot they captured on Christmas Eve in the latest issue of Dabiq, their online magazine.

First Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh, 26, is pictured in the magazine wearing an orange jumpsuit. In a brief question-and-answer article, published five days after his capture, he discusses his training and how his plane was downed by Isis fighters as he carried out air strikes in Syria.

In the final question, he is asked if he knows what Isis, who call themselves the Islamic State, will do to him. He replied: "Yes.. They will kill me."

Charlie Winter, a researcher for the anti-extremism thinktank Quilliam, told i100.co.uk he thought the interview was authentic, although the answers may have been forced. "It's very easy to get someone to say what you want them to say if you are threatening them with a knife," he said.

"The propaganda value in capturing a Jordanian pilot is immense. It doesn't surprise me that Isis turned the interview around so quickly."

al-Kasaesbeh is the first foreign soldier to fall into the extremist's hands, and his was the first coalition aircraft to be lost in Isis territory since strikes started in September. Winters explained Jordanians presented one of the greatest threats to Isis "because they have one of the better armies".

The interview came as Isis sympathisers posted gruesome photographs and recommendations of how to kill al-Kasaesbeh on Twitter.

"They've also been hijacking the hashtag in support of him," Winters said. But he stressed several of the Twitter posts, which contain graphic embedded images, would be people "bandwagoning" and were not from actual militants.

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