Profile: Lieutenant Moaz al-Kassasbeh

The video showing the horrific murder of Lieutenant  Moaz al-Kassasbeh, the young Jordanian fighter pilot has sent shockwave around the world, and left his family reeling with pain, rage and despair. 

Moaz 26, was one of eight siblings, four boys and four girls. Since childhood, he had dreamed of becoming a pilot and after high school, he attended flight training college.  

In 2009, after graduation, he joined the military and began flying F-16s and other warplanes, earning the rank of lieutenant. 

"Since childhood, he wanted to be a pilot," Jawdat, 30, said of his brother. 

The young pilot got married last year to a  university graduate from his home village of Ay, and the young couple moved to nearby provincial town of Karak.  

In recent months Moaz refused to share his feelings about Jordan's bombing missions against Islamic State militants, his family says. 

Perhaps this is not so surprising as Jordan's participation in the US led military coalition against so called Islamic State group is unpopular in the pilot's home village said his brother.  

"People here believe our boys shouldn't fight outside the country," he said. "They should fight only in defending the soil of the country." 

Jawdat said his brother was a devout Muslim and had joined his parents on a pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The pilot's F-16 went down over northern Syria in December, near the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa, and he ejected. Militants pulled him out of the Euphrates River.

He became the first foreign military pilot to fall into the extremists' hands since the international coalition began its air strikes in September.