Jordan’s King Abdullah II told CNN that he didn’t watch the video of a pilot captured by ISIS being burned to death, calling it propaganda that has backfired on the terrorist group.
In an exclusive television interview, his first since Lt. Moath al-Kasasbeh was killed, the King told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that the video was ISIS grabbing a “tiger by the tail.”
“And it just motivated Jordanians to sort of rally around the flag, and the gloves have come off,” King Abdullah said in Amman. “Actually the barbarity of the way they executed our brave hero I think shocked the Muslim world — and specifically Jordanians and people from this region.”
King Abdullah said that though he didn’t see the video, the pictures in the papers of the killing were inescapable. And he was briefed by aides who had watched the video. He was filled with disgust and sadness for the pilot’s family, he said.
He said ISIS tries to appeal to “deluded young men and women” who believe they are becoming part of a caliphate, or Islamic state.
It’s a false link, King Abdullah said. It “has no truth or bearing to our history,” he said.
He called for a unified response to the ISIS threat.
“I’ve said this to leaders, both in the Islamic and Arab world and to the world in general, this is a third World War by other means,” he said. “This brings Muslims, Christians, other religions together in this generational fight that all of us have to be in this together.”
There are three components to the fight: a military response, a security response and an ideological response, he said. Changing minds, he said, will be the long-term element of the battle.