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Iraq sovereignty handover completed
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-06-28 15:15

HOSTAGE CRISIS

On Sunday, the Arabic-language satellite channel Al Jazeera broadcast footage of a blindfolded U.S. Marine, whose captors said they would kill him unless Iraqi prisoners were released.

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 and Jazeera said he was of Pakistani origin. 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. Militants have kidnapped a U.S. Marine and a Pakistani driver in Iraq and are threatening to behead them unless Iraqi prisoners are freed, Arab television reported on Sunday. [Reuters]

"A Marine assigned to the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force has been absent from his unit since June 21," a U.S. statement said. "However, Naval Criminal Investigative Services cannot confirm that Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun has been taken hostage."

Militants have already seized three Turks and a Pakistani contractor, in a new spate of kidnappings ahead of the handover.

Fighters loyal to al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on Saturday they were holding the Turks and would behead them within 72 hours unless Turks stopped working with U.S. forces.

The threats have cast a shadow over President Bush's visit to Turkey for the NATO summit on Monday and Tuesday.

U.S. Army soldiers set up a roadblock after a car bomb threat was reported in the Qadisiyah section of Baghdad, Iraq, Sunday, June 27, 2004. The U.S. Army expects an increase in guerilla attacks ahead of the handover of Iraqi sovereignty on June 30. [AP Photo]

Turkey and Pakistan are not part of the U.S.-led occupation force in Iraq but many nationals work as drivers, cooks, cleaners and support staff for U.S. troops.

Turkey refused to bow to the kidnappers' demands, saying it had been "fighting terrorist activity for more than 20 years."

Zarqawi's group beheaded a South Korean hostage last week after Seoul rejected a demand to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and last month decapitated a U.S. captive.

Zarqawi has also claimed responsibility for a series of bloody attacks, most recently a wave of suicide bombings and armed assaults in five cities on Thursday that killed more than 100 Iraqis and three U.S. soldiers.

On Sunday a C-130 transport aircraft was hit by small arms fire after takeoff from Baghdad airport. One person was wounded and later died, the U.S. military said.

Several explosions also rang out in central Baghdad as guerrillas aimed mortars at the "Green Zone" compound housing the U.S.-led administration's headquarters. One mortar killed two boys playing near the Tigris river, doctors said.

A separate rocket attack on a U.S. base in Baghdad killed an American soldier. At least 630 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action in Iraq since the start of the war last year.

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