this could be big, ...freedom fighters named for '20's struggle against the brits to behead US Marine while the idiot commander in chief is bloviating in Turkey, ...resonating down the corridors of time for Islam, calling to the war of civ's, ...there is certainly genius on one side, ...and it's as certainly not strauss's clever chicago boys.
Militant threat to kill captive marine
Hostage crisis escalates as soldier is threatened with beheading unless Iraqi prisoners are freed
David Teather in New York and Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Monday June 28, 2004
The Guardian
The chilling spate of hostage taking in Iraq escalated yesterday when Islamist militants claimed to have taken a US marine captive and threatened to behead him unless Iraqi prisoners are freed.
The US military last night said it was investigating video footage aired on the Arabic television station al-Jazeera showing a blindfolded man dressed in camouflage fatigues. A captor stands behind the victim wielding a large sword.
The man was carrying what appeared to be a Marine Corps identity card that named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun, an American of Pakistani origin. Other official documents bearing his name were also displayed.
American officers said a marine of that name was missing, but could not confirm he had been taken hostage.
A second hostage, believed to be a Pakistani man, was shown on a tape broadcast by the Arab television station al-Arabiya.
His captors threatened to behead him in three days unless American troops release prisoners from several locations across Iraq.
Abductions have suddenly flared up again in Iraq ahead of Wednesday's much anticipated handover of power to Iraqis.
The two new hostages join three Turkish nationals who were seized on Saturday by a group led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. They face a similar fate, though in this case the captors are demanding the withdrawal of all Turkish companies working with coalition forces within 72 hours.
In recent months, hostage taking and decapitation have emerged as the most menacing tactics by Islamist militants seeking to humiliate the US-led coalition in Iraq.
They follow a grisly ritual: the release of grainy video footage of the unfortunate captive, an often fruitless period of negotiation followed by a second set of images displaying the execution posted on the internet.
A South Korean was the latest to be beheaded last week; before him an American civilian was decapitated in May and an Italian hostage shot dead a month earlier. A US contractor was beheaded in Saudi Arabia earlier this month by militants linked to al-Qaida.
Insurgents also used more conventional means to unsettle coalition forces over the weekend, killing 23 people in car bombings in the southern town of Hilla, mounting a series of assaults in the restive town of Baquba north-east of Baghdad that killed at least nine, and shooting at an American transport plane as it left Baghdad yesterday, killing one.
Iraq's new prime minister, Ayad Allawi, has suggested a state of emergency may be required once his administration takes over.
Al-Jazeera said the group claiming to hold the US marine called itself the Islamic Response, the security wing of the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a reference to the uprising against the British after the first world war.
The group claimed it had infiltrated a marine outpost, lured the man outside and abducted him.
The second hostage, who was seized with him near the US base of Balad, 80 kilometres north of Baghdad, was pictured sitting in front of four masked men holding as sault rifles across their chests.
The hostage who gave his name only as Amjad was shown hunched in front of his captors and the tape showed an identity card from Kellogg Brown & Root, the Halliburton division carrying out work in Iraq. He urged the Pakistani president to close the Pakistani embassy in Iraq and stop further nationals going to Iraq.
"I'm also Muslim, but despite this they didn't release me," he said, bowing his head. "They are going to cut the head of any person regardless of whether he is a Muslim or not."
Pakistani interior minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told reporters that his government was trying to find details of the man captured. "We are not sure if he is a Pakistani. Our embassy in Iraq is taking the necessary action."
The Turkish government, playing host to the Nato summit in Istanbul, yesterday rejected the demands to pull out of Iraq. "Turkey will not bow to terrorists," the defence minister, Vecdi Gonul, told reporters.
Washington has offered a $10m reward for Mr Zarqawi's capture.
He has also claimed responsibility for a series of bloody attacks in five cities last week that killed more than 100 Iraqis and three US soldiers.
At a memorial service in Egg Harbor Township in New Jersey on Saturday, the family of Paul Johnson, the US engineer slain in Saudi Arabia, called on the government to find his body and not to allow his death to be in vain. Mr Johnson was killed after being kidnapped near his home in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia.
Another US soldier, private Keith Maupin, was captured by militants on April 9 and remains missing.
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