Prisoner swap could be possible for captured Jordan pilot

Tareq Al Fayed, a Jordanian activist close to the Salafis told the London-based daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi on Thursday that a prisoner exchange could be possible if the Jordanian government released people affiliated with al-Qaida in Iraq, the precursor to Islamic State.

The activist mentioned several names including jihadist Ziad al-Karbouli (aka Abu Houthiyfah) as a possible person that could be exchanged. Karbouli worked with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former leader of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Fayed also mentioned Jordanian Muammar al-Jaghbir, who was sentenced to death for the 2002 murder of a US diplomat, but whose sentence was commuted to 15 years.

Another name that he raised was Sajida al-Rishawi, an Iraqi woman who was caught trying to blow herself up in a suicide bombing during a wedding party at a hotel in Amman in 2005.

Meanwhile, the father of a Jordanian pilot said he did not consider his son a hostage and called on his captors to treat him as a "guest".

Jordan is one of several Arab countries participating in the US-led military mission to bomb fighters from the Islamist group, which holds territory in both Syria and Iraq.

First Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh, 27, was captured after his jet crashed in northeast Syria during a bombing mission against the militants. The US military, which commands the operation, said enemy fire was not the cause of the crash.

Kasaesbeh, who comes from a prominent Jordanian Sunni Muslim family, is the first pilot from the international coalition known to have been captured by Islamic State.

The Sunni Muslim jihadist group has a history of killing enemy soldiers that it captures on the battlefield and beheading Western civilians that it takes hostage. Many of the captives it has killed are Shi'ites or non-Muslims, but the group has also executed Sunnis for fighting alongside its enemies.

His family has pleaded for mercy.

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

"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," he said.