Local Middle East Expert Says ISIS Crossed Line

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Β CHARLOTTE, NC — President Obama is facing mounting pressure to move more quickly to provide military equipment to Jordan. The push comes as religious and political leaders across the Middle East are united in their outrage and condemnation of the Islamic State’s latest act of terror.

The video, too gruesome to show, shot by militants as the young Jordanian pilot was burned alive inside a metal cage, crossed a line. The pilot’s family says the terror group is going against Islam.

“It is more than what you believe,” said Zakaria Maaitah, the Jordanian polit’s cousin. “Not in Islam, not in any other religion, can accept this.”

“Groups like the Islamic State are by Muslim standards radical,” said Jonathan Berkey, Ph.D.

Davidson College professor Jonathan Berkey teaches Middle Eastern history, and says the militant group has enjoyed a certain degree of sympathy, if not support, in the muslim world… until now.

“I think what happened yesterday with that brutal, absolutely horrifying, murder of that Jordanian soldier is that, in Jordan anyway, it woke a lot of people up,” said Berkey.

Jordan’s retaliation was swift, hanging two Al Qaeda prisoners. U.S. officials say Jordan is already in the process of stepping up its airstrikes against the terror group.

“The consequence may be to cause some of those who have not joined, but aligned themselves with the Islamic State, to back off,” said Berkey

Republicans have been critical of the White House strategy, saying President Obama has limited his options by rejecting calls for ground troops.

“Have no doubt. ISIS is winning,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona. “We are neither degrading nor destroying ISIS, and we have no strategy for doing so.”

Any mission could last well beyond the end of President Obama’s time in office, with the U.S. just at the beginning of what could be a long fight.

The United States is providing Jordan with $1 billion in economic and military assistance. The Defense Department is also giving an unspecified amount of help to Jordan to secure its border with Syria.