JORDAN executed two al-Qaida prisoners before dawn today, just hours after an online video showed Islamic State (Isis) members burning a captured Jordanian pilot to death in a cage.

The pair who were hanged were Sajida al-Rishawi and Ziad al-Karbouly, two Iraqis linked to al-Qaida.

Ms Rishawi had been sentenced to death for her role in a 2005 triple hotel bombing that killed 60 people in Amman orchestrated by al-Qaida in Iraq, the predecessor of Isis.

Mr Karbouly was sent to death row in 2008 for plotting terror attacks on Jordanians in Iraq.

The gruesome death of 26-year-old Flight-Lt Muath al-Kaseasbeh, who was captured while participating in air strikes against Isis, sparked outrage across the Middle East and anti-Isis protests in Jordan.

King Abdullah II, who had been visiting US President Barack Obama in Washington, rushed back home to make the case for an even tougher line against Isis.

Public opinion in Jordan has been ambiguous — growing demands for revenge against the militants have been mixed with misgivings about Jordan’s role in a bombing campaign

widely seen as serving Western interests.

Isis has appeared to be goading Jordan, playing the murder of Flight-Lt Kaseasbeh on outdoor projectors in the occupied Syrian city of Raqaa, the group’s de facto capital.

A wave of condemnation washed across the Middle East today.

The pilot’s father Safi Yousef al-Kaseasbeh urged his government to “take revenge for Muath and to take revenge for the country, even before Muath.”

The head of Sunni Islam’s most respected seat of learning, Egypt’s al-Azhar, described the militants as enemies of God and the Prophet Mohammed, saying they deserved the Koran-prescribed punishment of death, crucifixion or having their arms chopped off.

“Islam prohibits the taking of an innocent life,” said al-Azhar grand sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb.

He added that by burning the pilot to death, the militants violated Islam’s prohibition on the mutilation of bodies, even during wartime.

The latest video was released three days after another showed the beheading of Japanese journalist Kenji Goto.

A second Japanese hostage was apparently killed earlier last month.