The barbaric, elaborately stage-managed video that showed Jordanian pilot Moath al-Kasasbeh being burned alive was a calculated move by ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to weaken the resolve of Jordan and other Sunni Arab powers that have joined the U.S.-led coalition against the terror group. But the early signs indicate the video, which may have been shot a month ago, has had the opposite result, creating a significant backlash from Sunnis in the region.
Spreading terror has worked before for ISIS, allowing it to punch above its weight. In the weeks before launching an assault on Mosul, Iraq, in June, the group released a series of gory videos showing the militants brutalizing and killing Iraqi soldiers they had captured. It put the scare in the Iraqi army. When ISIS fighters attacked Mosul, Iraqi soldiers turned and fled despite greatly outnumbering the attackers.
Al-Baghdadi was no doubt hoping to pull off the same trick this time. The release of the video to coincide with Jordanian King Abdullah II’s visit to the United States may have been deliberate — the optics of the Jordanian King in Washington served ISIS’ narrative of the kingdom being a vassal of the “Crusaders.”
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