Jordanian King Abdullah cut short a visit to the United States yesterday after Islamic State militants released a video purporting to show a captive Jordanian pilot being burnt alive. Photo: Reuters

Islamic State militants released a video yesterday appearing to show a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive, and Jordan promised to avenge his death.

Reuters could not immediately confirm the content of the video, which showed a man resembling airman Mouath al-Kasaesbeh standing in a black cage before being set ablaze. But the reaction of the Jordanian authorities made clear they treated it as genuine.

“The revenge will be as big as the calamity that has hit Jordan,” army spokesman Colonel Mamdouh al Ameri said in a televised statement confirming the death of the pilot, who was captured in December when his plane crashed over Syria.

A government spokesman said in a statement that Jordan would deliver a “strong, earth-shaking and decisive” response.

The fate of al-Kasaesbeh, a member of a large tribe that forms the backbone of support for the Hashemite monarchy, has gripped Jordan for weeks and provoked rare protests against King Abdullah over the government’s handling of the crisis. The king cut short a visit to the United States to return home.

The head of the Jordanian armed forces broke the news of the pilot’s death to his family, a relative told Reuters.

Jordan had said last week it was willing to hand over an Iraqi woman detained for a role in a 2005 suicide bombing in Amman, if Islamic State would release the pilot. But Jordanian state TV said yesterday that he had been killed a month ago, on January 3.

The White House said the intelligence community was studying when the video was recorded and that President Barack Obama had ordered his team to devote all resources to locate other hostages held by Islamic State.

Relatives of Islamic State captive Jordanian pilot Muath al-Kasaesbeh holding pictures of him as they joined students during a rally calling for his release, at Jordan University in Amman, yesterday. Pictured are Kasaesbeh’s brothers Jawdat Safi (left) and Jawad Safi (right); Jawdat Safi’s wife (second left) and Kasaesbeh’s wife Anwar Tarawneh (second right). Photo: Muhammad Hamed/Reuters

A staunch US ally, Jordan is part of the alliance against the Islamic State group that has seized large areas of Syria and Iraq. King Abdullah has defended the campaign from domestic criticism, saying that moderate Muslims need to combat a group whose ideology and brutality have insulted Islam.

Obama said the video, if real, would redouble the determination of a US-led alliance to degrade and destroy Islamic State. He said it would be another sign of the “viciousness and barbarity” of the militants.

In the video, the burned man wore orange clothes similar to those worn by other foreign Islamic State captives who have been killed since the US-led coalition started bombing the militants in July. Islamic State has released videos showing the beheadings of five US and British hostages and said that it has killed two Japanese captives in the same way.

Jordan had been demanding the release of Kasaesbeh in exchange for Sajida al-Rishawi, jailed in Jordan for her role in a 2005 suicide bomb attack that killed 60 people.

In the Islamic State video, Kasaesbeh is interviewed, describing the mission he was due to carry out before his jet crashed. The video also showed footage of the aftermath of air strikes, with people trying to remove civilians from debris.

A man resembling Kasaesbeh is shown inside the cage with his clothes dampened, apparently with flammable liquid, and one of the masked fighters holds a torch, setting alight a line of fuel which leads into the cage.