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Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sunday terrorism must be opposed "with every fiber of our being."

Kerry, speaking Sunday at the Munich Security Conference, said the world is witnessing a form of "criminal anarchy." In a reference mainly to Islamic State militants, the top U.S. diplomat said there are no grounds to justify the rise in violent extremism.

He made the comments a day after Jordanian fighter jets struck Islamic State targets for a third straight day.

Jordan launched the raids to avenge the killing of a Jordanian pilot the Islamic State group captured in Syria in December.

UAE joins Jordan airstrikes

The United Arab Emirates said Saturday it ordered a squadron of F-16 fighter planes to Jordan to help with the airstrikes.

Both Jordan and the UAE are members of the U.S.-led coalition attacking the militants in their captured territory in Iraq and Syria.

Coalition airstrikes also continued Saturday, as the fate of an American aid worker held by Islamic State fighters remained unknown.

Kayla Mueller's family released a statement Friday saying they were still hopeful she is alive.

Their response came after the White House said it had seen no evidence to corroborate the militants' claim of her death by a recent Jordanian airstrike.

Skepticism over the claim comes after Jordanian authorities said their pilot was killed a month before IS released a video showing his death.

Mueller is the last remaining U.S. hostage known to be in the hands of the Islamic State group. Three other Americans held by the militants were beheaded.

Jordanian officials call Islamic State's report of Mueller's death "criminal propaganda."

'Sick trick'

Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh said on Twitter that it is "an old and sick trick used by terrorists and despots for decades claiming that hostage human shields held captive are killed by air raids."

Those who know Mueller say she was deeply moved by the suffering of civilians stuck in poverty and caught up in war and terrorism. She had worked in Syria and volunteered with aid groups in the West Bank and India.

In their statement late Friday, her parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, asked their daughter's captors to "respond to us privately."

The Islamic State group said she was killed when a Jordanian airstrike hit the building where she was being held in the Syrian city of Raqqa.

The militants kidnapped her when she left a hospital in Aleppo in 2013.

Meanwhile, Jordan's King Abdullah has vowed an "earth-shaking," open-ended response to the killing of fighter pilot Muath al-Kaseasbeh.

An Islamic State video posted online this past week showed the pilot locked in a cage, soaked with gasoline and burned alive while armed fighters watched.

Thousands of people flooded the streets of Amman Friday in support of Kaseasbeh.

The demonstrators marched through the Jordanian capital after Friday prayers, waving flags and chanting slogans against the militants. Jordan's Queen Rania joined the marchers and held up a picture of the murdered pilot.

Jordan said recent airstrikes against Islamic State targets are only the beginning of its retaliation for the killing.

*VOF