Despite petitions extended on his behalf invoking Islamic tradition and the requirement to not harm another Muslim, ISIS was bent on publicly executing al- Kasaesbeh. And so they did.
The reasons should, by now, be obvious. This Jordanian pilot, downed in late December, was worse than a non-believer, worse than a heretic. Al Kasaesbeh was a traitor who betrayed ISIS’s conception of Islam. And so, he was brutally murdered, placed in a black cage and burned to death while the camera was rolling and then covered, buried with dry sand.
The video entitled “Healing the Believer’s Chests” spread quickly. The title comes from the Koran, 9:14. A better translation would probably be “Healing the Breast of the Believers”–“fight them and Allah will punish them by your hands, cover them with shame, help you over them, heal the breasts of Believers.” That is the exact quote from the Koran.