Jordan is offering to free an Iraqi female prisoner in exchange for a Jordanian fighter pilot held hostage by ISIS, after the group threatened to kill the pilot and a Japanese journalist by the name of Kenji Goto. The woman was given a death sentence for her part in a 2005 suicide bomb attack on a luxury hotel in the Jordanian capital, Amman, yet Jordan is still waiting for ISIS to provide proof that their pilot is alive and well.
The Japanese journalist might also be freed as a result of the deal. Matt McGarry is following the story from Beirut. Late Wednesday night, ABC News has learned audio attributed to Japanese hostage Kenji Goto Jogo stated that the Jordanians must present Sajida al-Rishawi at the Turkish border by Thursday sunset (10am ET), or Jordanian pilot Mu’adh al-Kasasibah will be executed “immediately”. ISIS-linked Twitter accounts distributed the video, which contains the audio and Arabic text, on January 28, 2015.
ABC’s Hamish MacDonald joined us from the London Foreign Desk to discuss:
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