WATCH ABOVE: CBS reporter Susan McGinnis has the latest from Washington, where Jordan’s King has been meeting with President Obama.
Jordan has executed the convicted would-be suicide bomber ISIS had demanded be released in exchange for freeing a captive Jordanian pilot, whom the militant group had already murdered.
Government spokesperson Mohammed al-Momanil confirmed the executions of two former al-Qaeda operatives, including Sajida al-Rishawi, after dawn on Wednesday (local time). Her execution comes less than a day after ISIS released a video showing captive Muath al-Kaseasbeh being burned to death.
Iraqi-born al-Rishawi was convicted for trying to blow herself up at a Jordanian hotel in 2005. Her attack was unsuccessful — the vest of explosives strapped beneath her robe didn’t work properly and failed to explode — but her al-Qaeda operative husband managed to detonate his, killing 27 guests at a wedding and himself.
It was a part of a triple attack on hotels in the capital city of Amman that claimed 60 lives.
Al-Rishawi has been in a Jordanian prison, awaiting her death, ever since.
At 44, she might have had a chance at freedom — to walk away from death row. ISIS demanded her release in exchange for freeing al-Kaseasbeh. ISIS was bargaining in bad faith — which wasn’t necessarily a surprise — and had apparently killed the 26-year-old captive on Jan. 3.
What was a shock, not just for Jordan, was the atrocious way the militant group executed al-Kaseasbeh — locking him in a cage, covering him in fuel, and burning him alive. The horrific video of his murder was posted online, as ISIS has done with several other executions.
READ MORE: ISIS claims to have burned Jordanian pilot alive in video
Jordanians took to the street late Tuesday, protesting against ISIS and calling for vengeance and it appears they’ll see some form of retribution.
Al-Momani said Ziad al-Karbouli, once an aide to deceased al-Qaeda in Iraq founder Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was executed along with al-Rishawi. The executions came less than a day after ISIS militants released the video purportedly showing the brutal killing.
Jordan only reinstated the death penalty in December, after an eight-year ban.
After her botched bombing attempt, al-Rishawi confessed to the crime on television.
READ MORE: Calls for #ISISMediaBlackout to stop spread of horrific ISIS images
The Guardian reported al-Rishawi had connections to high-ranking members of al-Qaeda in Iraq — the forerunner to ISIS, which al-Qaeda later disavowed.
Her brother was Mubarak Atrous al-Risahawi, who served as the head of the Anbar province branch of al Qaeda in Iraq, until he was killed in 2004, the Guardian reported at the time of her arrest.
He, in turn, was the deputy to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — a Jordanian wanted by the U.S, with the offer of a $25 million reward, until his death in a 2006 American airstrike in Iraq.
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi took over the leadership of the terror network affiliate, and remains at the helm as the head of ISIS.
According to Newsweek, al-Baghdadi promised to secure al-Rishawi’s release back in July, shortly after ISIS took control of Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul.
“He made the name of Sajida synonymous with the name of Baghdadi,” Newsweek quoted an Iraqi security source as saying.
READ MORE: Why is Aafia Siddiqui a terrorist bargaining chip?
But with Jordan involved in the U.S.-led bombing campaigns against ISIS the response could go much further.
“Our punishment and revenge will be as huge as the loss of the Jordanians,” said the spokesman of the armed forces, Mamdouh al-Ameri.
With files from The Associated Press
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