Re: Family Confirms Missing Marine

Date: June 28, 2004

"Family confirms missing marine

From correspondents in Salt Lake City, Utah

28jun04

A US family today confirmed that their relative was the missing US marine threatened with beheading in a militant videotape.

US officials in Iraq said Wassef Ali Hassoun had been missing for nearly a week but it was not clear whether he was being held hostage.

"We accept destiny with its good and bad," Hassoun family friend and spokesman Tarek Nosseir said in Salt Lake City. "We pray and plead for his safe release."

Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape purportedly of a marine taken hostage by a militant group threatening to behead him if the US military did not release all prisoners in Iraq.

The tape showed a blindfolded, moustached man and displayed a marine identification card in the name of Wassef Ali Hassoun. Al-Jazeera said he was of Pakistani origin.

  © Herald and Weekly Times, Australia"

AND

" US military confirms Marine missing in IraqWASHINGTON (AFP) Jun 28, 2004

US Marine Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun has been missing in Iraq since last Monday, a spokesman for the US Marine Corps confirmed here late Sunday.

"Although we can't conform that he has been taken hostage, we can confirm that that he has been absent from his unit since June 21," Major Douglas Powell said.

Hassoun was attached the the First Marine Expeditionary Force, and his unit was operating west of Fallujah, Powell said.

Earlier, an armed Islamic group threatened to behead a US Marine it claims to have kidnapped unless the coalition released Iraqi prisoners from jails.

In a video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television the group, which called itself the "Islamic Retaliation Movement - Armed Resistance Wing," said it had abducted the marine of Pakistani origin and would execute him unless all detainees in US-led coalition prisons were freed.

Powell could not confirm that Hassoun was of Pakistani descent but said a lot of members of his extended family lived in Lebanon.

His family has been notified of his present status.

The spokesman also said the missing Marine was fluent in Arabic.

No other information were provided.

©AFP"

AND

" Denton, Texas
Monday June 28, 2004 12:52 a.m.

Family: Marine shown in hostage video from Salt Lake City suburb

By TRAVIS REED  / Associated Press

A family in this Salt Lake City suburb confirmed Sunday that its relative is the missing U.S. Marine threatened with beheading in a militant videotape.

U.S. officials in Iraq said Wassef Ali Hassoun had been missing for nearly a week but it was not clear whether he was being held hostage.

Hassoun's relatives live in a multi-story home in an upscale West Jordan subdivision.

"In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, we accept destiny with its good and its bad," Hassoun family friend and spokesman Tarek Nosseir said in a brief statement to reporters outside the family's home. "We pray and we plead for his safe release and we ask all people of the world to join us in our prayers. May God bless us all."

Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape purportedly of a Marine taken hostage by a militant group threatening to behead him if the U.S. military did not release all prisoners in Iraq.

The tape showed a blindfolded, mustached man and displayed a Marine identification card in the name of Wassef Ali Hassoun. Al-Jazeera said he was of Pakistani origin.

The U.S. military said a corporal by that name had been missing from his unit in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force since June 21. The statement said Hassoun was of Lebanese descent.

"Contrary to press reports, however, Naval Criminal Investigative Services cannot confirm that Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun has been taken hostage," the statement said.

"He would never desert," Judy Hassoun, Wassef Hassoun's former sister-in-law, said by telephone from Bacliff, Texas. She said Hassoun is serving his second stint in Iraq.

Hassoun is originally from Tripoli, Lebanon. Judy Hassoun said she has not seen him in about five years.

"He is a great student. He went to American school in Lebanon," she said. She said he is fluent in Arabic and French and is "very peaceful, but very brave, very loving."

He is one of six children. She described him as her favorite.

"He was the best natured," she said. He studied hard and "always wanted to get good grades. He helped everybody. He helped his mother a lot."

Mohammad Hassoun, her former husband, is the oldest of the six. He and his ex-wife would send money to Lebanon to help with the younger children, she said. Then they put the younger siblings into private American schools, she said. "We wanted them in American schools," she said.

Judy Hassoun said she had recently received a letter from a cousin and had been afraid to open it, fearful of the news it might contain. "I did open it. It was just a letter."

"I pray for all of them over there. I've got a grandson in the Air Force. We are a military family. All my children have been in the service," she said.

Judy Hassoun said Wassef Hassoun moved to the Salt Lake City area and joined the Marines after moving there.

AP reporter Linda Franklin in Dallas contributed to this story. "