Jordan executes 2 prisoners after pilot burned alive by Islamic State

In a swift and severe response, Jordan authorities executed at dawn Wednesday two Iraqi terror convicts just hours after Islamic State militants released a video showing a Jordanian pilot burned to death in a cage.

The hangings underscored the hardening stance by officials in Jordan, a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State, after street protests calling for revenge against the militant group.

The backlash from the video — released while Jordan’s King Abdullah II was holding talks in Washington — also threatened to draw the usually cautious monarch toward ever more direct confrontation with radical Islamists.