Tribes at Center of Effort to Free Jordanian Pilot

AMMAN, Jordan — It is often said that in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan all politics is tribal.

That goes a long way toward explaining the country’s reaction to the hostage crisis involving a Royal Jordanian Air Force pilot and a Japanese journalist, including Jordan’s offer to free an extremist on death row and even looking the other way when protesters disparaged the king in the presence of his powerful intelligence service.

It is not just that First Lt. Moaz al-Kasasbeh is a handsome young F-16 fighter pilot with a prominent social media presence, and the first member of the international coalition bombing the Islamic State to be captured by the extremists. He is also a member of a politically influential tribe, part of a crucial base of tribal support for the king.

“The social structure of Jordan is tribal more than institutional,” Lieutenant Kasasbeh’s father, Safi Youssef al-Kasasbeh, said as he sat in a diwan, or social hall, in Amman on Saturday waiting for word of his son’s fate, surrounded by a shifting crowd of well-wishers sometimes numbering in the hundreds. “The cohesiveness is very strong, and now we feel that every tribal member is supported by every tribe in Jordan.”

“They are thinking they could use the case of Moaz to stir up disturbances in Jordan,” Mr. Fazzaa said, warning other government critics to hold back — not a position he normally takes. “Anyone who has a bare minimum of national feelings must stay quiet now,” he said.

Referring to Karak, Mr. Rawashdeh, the parliamentarian, said, “Some of our young men out of ignorance or because they’re suffering economically did support ISIS, but right now we’re noticing that people no longer do.”

“If anything happens to Moaz, the whole street will turn against ISIS,” Mr. Rawashdeh said.

By Saturday night, Leiutenant Kasasbeh’s fate remained unknown. The video that appeared to show Mr. Goto’s death on Saturday, made no mention of the pilot. But many Jordanians are concerned that the reason the militants did not provide proof he was alive, as Jordan’s government demanded, is that they had already killed him.

The New York Times