The Islamic State (IS) has captured a Jordanian pilot from a plane that crashed in Syria, claiming the jet was shot down with a heat-seeking missile.
The United States disputed the claim stating that “evidence clearly indicates that ISIL did not down the aircraft” and that the plane had crashed in Syria on Wednesday. A statement from US Central Command said it would “not tolerate ISIL's attempts to misrepresent or exploit this unfortunate aircraft crash for their own purposes”.
Jordanian Information Minister Mohammad Momani, however, told al-Arabiya TV that a “missile fired from the ground” had hit the plane, adding that “efforts to rescue the pilot were unsuccessful.”
Images of the pilot of the F-16 aircraft have been released on social media, alongside photographs of IS militants hauling wreckage of the aircraft.
The UN Secretary General’s spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said that he "calls on his captors to treat the pilot in accordance with international humanitarian law.”
Jordan is one of four Arab states alongside, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that have joined US-led coalition forces in carrying out airstrikes against IS. 65 airstrikes have been carried out by the Arab nations in Syria so far.