Daesh’s ‘offer’ is but a ploy

The attempt by the Daesh terror group to link the fate of a convicted terrorist to the lives of a Jordanian and a Japanese hostage is ludicrous and shows that the group is only bent on shedding blood.

The group issued an ultimatum, threatening to kill the hostages if a convicted terrorist is not set free by Jordan on Wednesday, unconditionally. Neither did it give any guarantees of any possible exchange.

To start with, Daesh, which calls itself the Islamic State while it has nothing to do with Islam and is definitely not a state, acts as far from Islam’s injunctions and as inhumanly as possible. It places no value on human life, as became apparent in all its actions from the very beginning.

It is a murder machine that aims to eliminate all those who do not agree with its sick thoughts and criminal practices.

It does not recognise international laws, human norms and Islamic tenets, thus demonstrating why it is attracting an international coalition to fight it.

The group’s first demand — before the ultimatum issued Tuesday — to have Sajeda Rishawi, convicted for terrorist attacks that targeted three hotels in Amman in 2005 killing scores of innocent victims, exchanged for a Japanese hostage, rather than for Jordanian pilot Muath Kasasbeh, who was captured on December 24, is clearly illogical. 

It can be interpreted as an attempt to create a rift between two close allies, Jordan and Japan, in particular, and in general among the ranks of the international coalition fighting its presence on Iraqi and Syrian soil, and its practices that contravene all human norms and conventions.

The demand should not be taken as an offer to exchange prisoners, as the group’s aim is never to save lives; not of death row inmate Rishawi, nor of the Jordanian pilot or the Japanese hostage, journalist Kenji Goto, whose colleague Haruna Yukawa was allegedly beheaded by IS terrorists earlier this week.

The cowardly act of beheading an innocent hostage, like many grotesque acts before it, is proof of the fact that this murderous group’s demand should not be taken seriously by officials and the public, neither in Amman nor in Tokyo. 

Saving a human life is an endeavour worth pursuing, but there are no guarantees that the group will release the hostages. It would indeed be surprising if it did.

Moreover, governments find it difficult to make concessions to terrorists because that encourages them to kidnap more innocent people to use them as bargaining chips.

Understandably, officials in Amman and Tokyo are saying little about the issue. They are leaving this tough job to their security and anti-terrorism experts to tackle.

We are sure that these people are exerting every possible effort to save Kasasbeh’s and Goto’s lives, fully aware that they are dealing with an insane and unpredictable terrorist group.

Theirs is a tough job. All Jordanians and Japanese pray that they succeed.