US Navy investigates marine Hassoun's disppearance

A US Marine whose apparent kidnapping in Iraq was followed by conflicting claims – first that he was beheaded, then that he was alive – contacted US authorities and is now safe in his native Lebanon.

The US Navy was investigating whether his abduction could have been a hoax.

Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun, reported missing from his base near the troubled city of Fallujah 18 days ago, arranged with US officials to pick him up yesterday afternoon in Beirut and bring him to the US Embassy, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in Washington.

At nearly the same time, a gunfight broke out between members of Cpl Hassoun’s clan in his home city of Tripoli and business rivals who called them US collaborators. Two people were killed.

The marine’ s older brother, Mohamad, said yesterday in front of his house in West Jordan, Utah, that he had spoken briefly to him by phone, but could not offer any details about his disappearance and refused to comment on the hoax question.

“He sounded OK. I was told that he has lost some weight, but he is well,” he said.

Confusion had surrounded the fate of 24-year-old, Cpl Hassoun since a dramatic videotape broadcast on Arab television on June 27 showed him with his eyes covered by a white blindfold and a sword hanging over his head.

His reported capture, claimed by a group calling itself “Islamic Response” came during the tense run-up to the US transfer of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government on June 28, a period of increased abductions and killings of foreigners and attacks on US forces.

A statement on an Islamic militant website on Saturday claimed that Cpl Hassoun had been beheaded, as were a US businessman and a Korean translator in Iraq and a contractor in Saudi Arabia. The next day, a statement on another Islamic website denied he had been killed.

In the latest twist to Cpl Hassoun’s story, there was speculation that he might have deserted his base and headed to Lebanon when he was abducted. The US Navy was investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been part of a hoax.

“I don’t think they’re ruling that out. It would be fair to say they’re not ruling that out,” a Marine spokesman, Major Nat Fahy, said.