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Lebanese report confirms US Marine's death
BEIRUT, July 4 (Xinhuanet) -- The Lebanese Foreign Ministry has been informed by the Lebanese Embassy in Baghdad that Wassef Ali Hassoun, the US Marine of Lebanese descent, had been killed,
the state-run National News Agency reported on Sunday.
The embassy conveyed the information to the Foreign
Ministry in Beirut on Sunday, the report said.
But it did not give details about how Hassoun's death
was confirmed.
An Iraqi militant group claimed Saturday that it had
beheaded aUS Marine of Lebanese descent.
"We inform you that Hassoun, the Marine of Lebanese
descent, has been decapitated," said the group, Jaish Ansar al-Sunna, in a
statement posted on an Islamic website.
"You will see the video soon," said the statement in
Arabic.
The US military has confirmed that Hassoun had been
missing from his unit, which was operating west of Fallujah, since June 21.
The al-Jazeera TV reported on June 27 that Iraqi
militants had allegedly kidnapped Hassoun and threatened to behead him unless
Iraqi prisoners are released. Enditem
Militant group claims to have beheaded US Marine
CAIRO, July 3 (Xinhuanet) -- A militant group claimed
Saturday that it had beheaded a US Marine of Lebanese de scent taken hostage
earlier in Iraq.
"We inform you that (Wassef Ali) Hassoun, the Marine
of Lebanese descent, has been decapitated," said the group, Jaish Ansar
al-Sunna, in a statement posted on an Islamic Website.
"You will see the video soon," the message said.
 
A television
image aired by Al Jazeera June 27, 2004 shows a blindfolded man dressed in
camouflage sitting in a chair with a hand holding a sword above his head. A
Marine Corps identity card named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun.Al Jazeera television
said a group calling itself the Islamic Response Movement, the security wing of
the "1920 Revolution Brigades", had kidnapped the U.S. Marine after luring him
from a U.S. base. (Xinhua/AFP photo)
The authenticity of the Arabic-language statement,
which was addressed to US President George W. Bush and demanded the withdrawal
of US troops from Iraq, has yet to be verified.
The US military has confirmed that Hassoun had been
missing from his unit, which was operating west of Fallujah, since June 21.
Pan-Arab satellite TV al-Jazeera reported on June 27
that Iraqi militants had allegedly kidnapped Hassoun and threatened to behead
him unless Iraqi prisoners are released.
The TV station aired a video tape of militants
holding a blindfolded 24-year-old Hassoun with a sword poised over his head.
The Pentagon had no immediate comment on the
decapitation claim.
Hassoun's father and brother in Lebanon said they had
heard the news but the death had not been confirmed.
Ansar al-Sunna also said in its statement that they
will issue a new tape showing a new "infidel" hostage, but it did not give the
nationality of the captive.
A spate of kidnappings of foreigners has hit Iraq and
a militant group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, accused by the US of
links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda, has claimed responsibility for beheading an
American and a South Korean.
On June 22, Zarqawi's group beheaded South Korean
hostage Kim Sun-il after Seoul refused to withdraw its forces from Iraq.
In May, the group decapitated US hostage Nicholas
Berg. One group of militants killed Italian civilian Fabrizio Quattrocchi in
April but later freed three of his colleagues.
Just hours after Washington's handover of power to
the new Iraqi government last Monday, al Jazeera broadcast a video tape showing
what militants said was the killing of US Private Keith Matthew Maupin, 20.
On one of the deadliest days since the new Iraqi
government took over, a US soldier, six Iraqi national guardsmen and a policeman
were killed by insurgents on Saturday, security and medical sources said.
"Five dead bodies were brought in here, including one
lieutenant and four soldiers, as well as five wounded people, three of whom were
seriously hurt," said a doctor at a hospital in Mahmudiyah, 30 km south of
Baghdad.
One of the five wounded died later at the capital's
Yarmuk Hospital, another medical source said.
A national guard commander said the soldiers were
attacked while guarding a pipeline near the small town of Latifiyah, which has
been a target of repeated rebel attacks.
A US marine died after an attack west of Baghdad,
while a British soldier sustained minor injuries in a bomb attack on a military
convoy in southern Basra.
An Iraqi policeman was also killed in an attack on a
traffic control point in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, US-led forces
said.
In an effort to thwart attacks, the interim
government has saidit would announce emergency measures "very soon," the Iraqi
deputyprime minister for national security, Barham Saleh, said in a TV interview
broadcast late Friday.
"This law will give the government the capability of
imposing emergency laws in specific areas and for set periods to deal with
terrorist threats," he said.
More than 400 people died in Iraq in a spate of
bloody attacks last month in the run-up to the handover of power on June 28.
The militants had warned they would continue
attacking Iraqi officials and US-led foreign forces, despite the power handover,
until "God's law" prevailed in Iraq. Enditem
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