Patricia. You said....." There is a strange story developing about this Lebanese soldier..........he was supposedly beheaded by a band of thugs who announced it on their website............but now he is alive in Lebanon? No one knows for sure!".....
Navy Investigates Cause Of Marine's Disappearance
Marine Has Been Missing Since June
POSTED: 3:57 pm PDT July 7, 2004
UPDATED: 10:12 pm PDT July 7, 2004
nbcsandiego.com
CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. -- According to NBC News, the Navy has launched a criminal investigation into the disappearance of a Marine who was reportedly taken hostage and threatened with beheading by Iraqi insurgents.
NBC News said the investigation is attempting to determine whether the Marine's kidnapping was part of an elaborate hoax.
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was first listed as missing, then captured. On Wednesday, however, Pentagon sources told NBC News that the Navy had launched a criminal investigation into the possibility that the Camp Pendleton-based Hassoun staged his own abduction.
Hassoun was reported missing June 21, and a week later, video surfaced with pictures of him blindfolded with a sword held by his head. On the tape, his captors threatened to kill him.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said Wednesday that government officials had received reports that a Marine who was threatened with beheading by Iraqi insurgents may have made contact with "various individuals" and may be in Lebanon.
Powell made the comments at a news conference at the State Department. Other government officials said on Wednesday that a person claiming to be Hassoun called the U.S. embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, and said he was safe.
According to NBC News, the embassy in Beirut is still trying to determine where the call originated. A senior official told NBC News on condition of anonymity that the reports being discussed at the State Department were both internal ones as well as others from the media. The official said Hassoun is "reportedly safely in Lebanon."
NBC News has learned that Hassoun's family is saying that he called them from an embassy in Lebanon and that it was told by one of Hassoun's cousins that something good had happened and that the family planned to have a news conference later on Wednesday.
Because the investigation is ongoing, military officials refused to say officially if Hassoun's abduction was a hoax, but they did tell NBC News that Hassoun talked openly talked about leaving his unit to join his family. |
