Ramallah (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has ordered an investigation into a drawing of the Muslim Prophet Mohammed which appeared in a West Bank newspaper, local media reported Tuesday.

The cartoon, which appeared Sunday in Al-Hayat al-Jadida, depicted what appeared to be a giant Mohammed standing on top of the world, sprinkling grains of love and acceptance from a heart-shaped satchel.

Palestinian news agency Wafa quoted Abbas as deeming it "necessary to take deterrent measures against those responsible for this terrible mistake."

Depictions of the prophet are considered forbidden in Islam.

A cartoon of the prophet on the cover of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in January -- a week after a deadly attack on its office in Paris by Islamist gunmen -- provoked outrage across the Muslim world, with leaders condemning the drawing.

Abbas joined world dignitaries including Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on a symbolic march through the streets of Paris days after the attack.

Mohammad Sabaaneh, who drew the Al-Hayat al-Jadida cartoon, told AFP it was "misunderstood," without elaborating.

In a post on his Facebook page, however, he explained he was trying to defend Islam "using the same methods as those who seek to insult the prophet -- cartoons."

The newspaper apologised in its Tuesday edition for the cartoon, and said it had opened an internal investigation into why it was published.

But it denied the figure in it was meant to be Mohammed.

An editorial staff member at the newspaper told AFP on condition of anonymity that "Sabaaneh wanted to show through the drawing the grains of tolerance and love of Islam, incarnate as a man.

"The aura of light around him in the cartoon is the legacy left to Muslims by Mohammed."

Sabaaneh told AFP in an interview last month that physical attacks on those who insulted the prophet were despicable.

"You have to react in kind, combating idea with idea, cartoons with cartoons -- not through murder," he said.

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi

AMMAN (Reuters) - Jordan hanged two Iraqi jihadists on Wednesday including a female militant in response to an Islamic State video showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burnt alive by the hardline group.

Islamic State had demanded the release of the woman, Sajida al-Rishawi, in exchange for a Japanese hostage who it later beheaded. Sentenced to death in 2005 for her a role in a suicide bomb attack in Amman, Rishawi was executed at dawn, a security source and state television said.

Jordan, which is part of the U.S.-led alliance against Islamic State, has promised an "earth-shaking response" to the killing of its pilot, Muath al-Kasaesbeh, who was captured in December when his F-16 crashed over northeastern Syria.

Jordan also executed a senior al Qaeda prisoner, Ziyad Karboli, an Iraqi man who was sentenced to death in 2008.

The fate of Kasaesbeh, a member of a large tribe that forms the backbone of support for the country's Hashemite monarchy, has gripped Jordan for weeks and some Jordanians have criticized King Abdullah for embroiling them in the U.S.-led war that they say will provoke a militant backlash.

King Abdullah cut short an official visit to the United States on Tuesday. In a televised statement to the nation, he urged national unity and said the killing was a cowardly act of terror by a criminal group that has no relation to Islam.

The Jordanian army has vowed to avenge his death, and some analysts believe it could escalate its involvement in the campaign against Islamic State, which has seized large areas of Iraq and Syria, Jordan's neighbors to the north and east.

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Protesters gather to demonstrate against the Islamic State in front of Islamic State captive Jordani …

Kasaesbeh's father said the two executions were not enough and urged the government to do more to avenge his death. "I want the state to get revenge for my son's blood through more executions of those people who follow this criminal group that shares nothing with Islam," Safi al-Kasaesbeh said.

"Jordanians are demanding that the state and coalition take revenge with even more painful blows to destroy these criminals," he said, speaking to Reuters by telephone.

The prisoners were executed in Swaqa prison, a large facility 70 km (45 miles) south of the capital, Amman, just before dawn, a security source who was familiar with the case said. "They were both calm and showed no emotions and just prayed," the source added without elaborating.

Rishawi, in her mid-forties, was part of an al Qaeda network that targeted three Amman hotels in suicide bombings in 2005. She was meant to die in one of the attacks - the worst in Jordan's history - but her suicide bomb belt did not go off.

Scores of Jordanians, infuriated by Kasaesbeh's killing, gathered at midnight in a main square in Amman calling for revenge and her quick execution.

Holding placards showing images of the pilot, several youths chanted "Death, Death to Daesh," using a pejorative Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

Jordan said on Tuesday the pilot had been killed a month ago. The government had been picking up intelligence for weeks that the pilot was killed some time ago, a source close to the government said.

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Iraqi Sajida al-Rishawi, 35, stands inside a military court at Juwaida prison in Amman in this April …

Disclosing that information appeared to be an attempt to counter domestic criticism that the government could have done more to strike a deal with Islamic State to save him.

In Karak, Kasaesbeh's hometown in southern Jordan, a small anti-government protest erupted late on Tuesday when his death was announced. The protesters, who attacked a government building, blamed the authorities for failing to do enough to save him. The demonstration ended when tribal elders intervened.

"The horror of the killing, the method of killing is probably going to generate more short-term support for the state," said a Western diplomat. "But once that horror dies down, inevitably some of the questions revert on Jordan’s role in the coalition."

U.S. ALLY

Jordan is a major U.S. ally in the fight against hardline Islamist groups and hosted U.S. troops during operations that led to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. It is home to hundreds of U.S. military trainers bolstering defenses in the Syrian and Iraqi borders.

Jordanian state television broadcast archive footage of military maneuvers with patriotic music, with a picture of Kasaesbeh in his army uniform in the corner of the screen.

Jordan is determined to keep the jihadists in Syria away from its border. It has tightened security on its frontier since Syria descended into civil war in 2011 has helped to keep Islamic State out of southern Syria.

U.S. officials said on Tuesday the killing of Kasaesbeh would likely harden Jordan's position as a member of the coalition against Islamic State.

The executed woman came from Iraq's Anbar province bordering Jordan. Her tribal Iraqi relatives were close aides of the slain Jordanian leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, from whose group Islamic State emerged.

Islamic State had demanded her release in exchange for the life of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto. However, Goto was later beheaded by the group, with images of his death released in a video last Saturday.

Jordan had insisted that they would only release the woman as part of a deal to free the pilot.

Several politicians have called on the government to pull out of the coalition. The authorities said his death would not weaken resolve to fight militant Islamist groups.

The Jordanian pilot is the first from the coalition known to have been captured and killed by Islamic State.

(Editing by Robert Birsel and Anna Willard)

Reuters Videos
Obama meets Jordan's King Abdullah at White House

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama and Jordanian King Abdullah II vowed not to let up in the fight against the Islamic State group Tuesday, as Jordanians mourned the death of a military pilot held captive by the militants.

Obama hosted Abdullah at the White House for a hastily arranged meeting, hours after a video emerged online purportedly showing 26-year-old Lt. Muath Al-Kaseasbeh burned to death by the militant group. Abdullah, who was on a previously scheduled trip to Washington, arrived after nightfall and made no remarks to reporters as he and Obama sat side by side in the Oval Office.

In the meeting, Obama offered "his deepest condolences" to the king over the pilot's death, the White House said. "The president and King Abdullah reaffirmed that the vile murder of this brave Jordanian will only serve to steel the international community's resolve to destroy ISIL," said White House spokesman Alistair Baskey, using an acronym for the extremist group.

Al-Kaseasbeh, who fell into the hands of the militants in December when his Jordanian F-16 crashed in Syria, is the only pilot from the U.S.-led coalition to have been captured to date.

His death sparked outrage in Jordan, where the country's participation in the coalition against the Islamic State group has not been popular. The video emerged following a weeklong drama over a possible prisoner exchange with an al-Qaida operative imprisoned in Jordan. Before dawn Wednesday, Jordan executed two al-Qaida prisoners.

In a statement before his meeting with Abdullah, Obama vowed the pilot's death would "redouble the vigilance and determination on the part of our global coalition to make sure they are degraded and ultimately defeated."

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President Barack Obama, third from right, delivers remarks during a meeting with people that wrote h …

"Lieutenant Al-Kaseasbeh's dedication, courage and service to his country and family represent universal human values that stand in opposition to the cowardice and depravity of ISIL, which has been so broadly rejected around the globe," Obama said.

Vice President Joe Biden, who held a previously scheduled lunch with Abdullah in Washington Tuesday, also condemned the killings and called for the release of all prisoners held by Islamic State militants. The king also held previously scheduled meetings with senators on Capitol Hill.

Abdullah, a close U.S. ally, has portrayed the campaign against the extremists as a battle over values. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., emerged from talks with Abdullah predicting that Jordan would have a "strong and forceful" response to the pilot's death.

"The Jordanian response will be more engaged, not less engaged, when it comes to destroying ISIL," Graham said. "The king feels that the gloves are off and that it now is time if you can't negotiate with these people, you're going to have to take it to them, and I think it's going to be more than Jordan."

___

Associated Press writers Deb Riechmann and Josh Lederman contributed to this report.

Follow Nedra Pickler on Twitter at https://twitter.com/nedrapickler

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This image taken from television shows Iraqi Sajida Mubarek Atrous al-Rishawi opening her jacket and showing an explosive belt as she confesses on.

W

ar On Terror: Jordan will likely face criticism for executing five terrorists in retaliation for the Islamic State's incineration of one of its pilots. It shouldn't. The ugly reality is that Jordan's response is the only appropriate one.

The global war on terror seems to be taking a new seriousness, given the unprecedented barbarism of the Islamic State's latest terror act.

Just days after brutally beheading two Japanese citizens, IS has released a video showing the burning death of a 26-year-old Jordanian pilot placed in a cage with an encircling trail of gasoline.

The repulsive video — probably shot in January, shortly after the pilot was captured the month before — was the terrorist group's most advanced propaganda effort yet, with cameras positioned at different angles to follow the gas-lit flames as they encircled and then consumed the innocent man.

The message sent was one of contempt for Jordan's offer to swap prisoners to save the man and evinced a special cruelty for a state that they intend to overrun.

There's no other way to deal with such a threat than with the hardest response possible.

Tragically, the friendly, pro-West Jordan is in no position to retaliate militarily or economically like the West. It's a poor country, awash in refugees from Syria, and its only nearby friend is Israel. President Obama's assurances of "solidarity" in the face of this barbarism ring pretty hollow.

The IS knows this. That's why it subjects the country to special cruelties. It knows that Jordan is all alone out there, facing a mortal threat. And Jordan knows it, too.

That's why Jordan's swift move to execute multiple terrorists — by some reports a thousand, but at least two — is the only act of retaliation that qualifies as commensurate.

No human rights lawyers, no Gitmo four-choice menus, no Froot Loops, no choice of Qurans, no costume robes and no terrorist-approved mullahs. Jordan is simply getting rid of murderous enemies who kill without conscience and terrorize its people.

Just a serious response to a serious threat. Someone in that country knows that the only way for a small state to deal with monsters is to confront and destroy them, just as Jordan's pre-Islamic-era hero, St. George, slew the dragon.

On Tuesday, the United Nations releasedits latest death toll in the ongoing fighting in eastern Ukraine. The new figure represents an ominous turning point in the battle between Ukrainian troops and pro-Russian separatists that was supposed to have halted under a September ceasefire agreement. The conflict as a whole has now taken more than 5,300 lives, roughly 2,000 of them since the ceasefire.

The past few weeks have been marked by a surge in deadly attacks, including bus bombings, the capture of the Donetsk airport by the rebels, and indiscriminate shelling. Now the White House is reportedly considering sending lethal aid to Ukraine."What's being discussed is perhaps we should begin providing defensive weapons, defensive equipment, to Ukraine," a senior U.S. official told Agence France-Presse on Monday.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have urged the president to send arms in recent months. Days before the September ceasefire, as Russian troops were seen streaming across the Ukrainian border, Democrats put pressure on the president to send lethal aid to Ukraine. In November, shortly after the Republicans captured the Senate, Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham renewed their call to "provide Ukraine with the arms and related military and intelligence support that its leaders have consistently sought and desperately need."

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For his part, Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko also addressed a session of Congress in September during which he practically begged the United States to provide weapons, stressing that “blankets, night-vision goggles are also important. … But one cannot win the war with blankets. Even more, we cannot keep the peace with a blanket. ... In Ukraine, you don’t build a democracy. It already exists. You just defend it.”

The shift in the White House's openness about lethal aid accompanies the prospect of more violence. On Monday, as The Wall Street Journal reported, the leader of the Russian-backed rebel separatists announced plans "to raise up to 100,000 troops to fight in eastern Ukraine." The report added: "The announcement comes as Kiev is enlarging its own army through a new round of conscriptions." (On Tuesday, separatists reportedly downed another Ukrainian jet.)

A few things have kept the White House from sending arms to Ukraine⎯the crippling sanctions already in place against Russia, the White House's semi-aversion to foreign entanglements, and, most saliently, the question of whether American arms will inflame the situation. "Russia is not ready to back down and it can match the U.S.,” one expert toldBloomberg.

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The New York Times noted that the president's thinking may have been swayed by areport submitted by eight former high-ranking officials. The authors proposed sending $3 billion in weapons and equipment to provide Ukraine with enough retaliatory power that, in the report's words, "Moscow will deterred from further aggression."

Another question is whether American allies would offer support for a policy shift or even send weapons of their own. A leading U.S. partner responded right away; on Tuesday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel reiterated her preference for enhancing sanctions against Russia instead of sending arms.

"Germany will not send Ukraine any deadly, lethal weapons, as I said yesterday," Merkel told a news conference. "We are focusing on a diplomatic solution and the foreign ministers have made clear that if the situation gets even worse ... then it will be necessary to work on further sanctions."

This article was originally published at http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/02/ukraine-lethal-aid-pro-russian-separatists-arm/385123/?UTM_SOURCE=yahoo