Muath Safi Yousef al-Kasasbeh (Arabic: معاذ صافي يوسف الكساسبة, romanized: Muʿaḏ Ṣāfī Yūsuf al-Kasāsibah  South Levantine pronunciation: [mʊˈʕaːð-, mʊˈʕaːz ˈsˤɑːfi ˈjuːsef el kaˈsaːsbe]; 29 May 1988[1] – c. 3 January 2015[2]) was a Jordanian fighter pilot who was captured and burned to death by the militant group ISIL after his F-16 fighter aircraft crashed over Syria.

United States and Jordanian officials said that mechanical problems caused the crash, while ISIL claimed that a heat-seeking missile hit the plane.

After murdering him, ISIL conducted negotiations with the Jordanian government, claiming it would spare al-Kasabeh's life and free Japanese journalist Kenji Goto in exchange for Sajida al-Rishawi, a woman sentenced to death by Jordan for attempted terrorism and possessing explosives.

In direct retaliation, King Abdullah ordered the executions of condemned terrorists Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad Al-Karbouly, as well as Operation Martyr Muath, a series of airstrikes that killed several ISIL militants over three days.

The plane al-Kasasbeh was piloting, a Lockheed Martin F-16 formerly used by the Royal Belgian Air Force, crashed after suffering from mechanical problems on 24 December 2014 during a bombing raid on a brick factory during the military intervention against the Islamic State.

[4] The Jordanian government said a technical failure caused him to eject after flying at low altitude, but the Islamic State claimed it shot down his aircraft.

Initially, it was proposed to trade him and a kidnapped Japanese journalist, Kenji Goto, for Sajida al-Rishawi, a failed Iraqi suicide bomber incarcerated in Jordan since she took part in the 2005 Amman hotel bombings and sentenced to death.

The mission was aborted when ISIL fighters in the area began firing anti-aircraft missiles at the helicopters, forcing a retreat.

The video shows him burned alive while numerous armed ISIL fighters in sand-colored balaclavas and desert camouflage watch on from a distance.

[29] Before he was burned to death, al-Kasasbeh was made to reveal the names and workplaces of a number of his fellow Royal Jordanian Air Force pilots.

[30][31] Their names and photographs were displayed at the end of the video, with an ISIL bounty offer of 100 gold dinars (approximately $20,000) for each Jordanian Air Force pilot killed.

[40] In January 2025 Swedish authorities announced[41] that Swedish-born, second-generation immigrant Osama Krayem, currently serving a lifetime sentence in Belgium for his involvement in the 2016 Brussels bombings, was to be tried at a criminal court in Sweden for the killing of al-Kasasbeh.

Al-Kasasbeh's killing provoked outrage in Jordan; even some of those who had been opposed to the country's participation in airstrikes against ISIL started demanding revenge.

[42] King Abdullah II cut short a visit to the United States, and the Jordanian government announced that all prisoners in its custody who had been convicted of association with ISIL would be executed "within hours" in retaliation for al-Kasasbeh's killing.

According to U.S. officials, the attacks took place near Raqqa and involved 20 Jordanian F-16s, with American refueling and radio jamming aircraft assisting.

[48][49] The Jordan Radio and Television Corporation aired footage shot prior to those attacks of pilots scribbling messages onto bombs slated to be used in the strikes.