- BAGHDAD (Reuters) -- An Iraqi
militant group issued footage Sunday of a man it said was a captured U.S.
Marine and threatened to behead him, further heightening tension ahead
of the June 30 formal handover of sovereignty.
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- Video shown on Qatar-based Arabic channel Al Jazeera
showed a blindfolded man in a camouflage uniform, and an apparent Marine
Corps identity card that named him as Wassef Ali Hassoun.
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- Jazeera said the group threatened to behead Hassoun unless
Iraqi prisoners are freed.
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- A U.S. military spokesman said a Marine by that name
was missing from his unit, but could not confirm he had been taken hostage.
The spokesman said the Marine, who was of Lebanese descent, belonged to
the First Marine Expeditionary Force and had been missing since June 21.
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- Militants in Iraq have already seized three Turks and
a Pakistani man over the past week in a new spate of kidnappings just days
before the formal handover of sovereignty by occupying forces to an interim
Iraqi government on June 30.
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- 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.
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- The threats have cast a shadow over President Bush's
visit to Turkey for a NATO summit Monday and Tuesday.
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- In a separate video tape aired on Al Arabiya television
on Sunday, unidentified gunmen said they had seized a Pakistani hostage
near Balad, north of Baghdad, and would kill him within three days unless
Iraqi prisoners were released from jail.
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- The footage showed the man, who had an identity card
given to contractors working for U.S. forces, urging Pakistan's president
to close the country's embassy in Iraq.
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- 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.
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- TURKEY REJECTS DEMANDS
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- 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 Thursday that killed more than 100 Iraqis and three U.S.
soldiers.
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- Washington has offered $10 million for Zarqawi's capture.
-
- Dozens of hostages were seized in Iraq in April as fighting
engulfed the rebellious city of Falluja and a Shi'ite uprising swept through
central and southern Iraq. Most were later freed but at least four were
killed by their captors.
-
- One U.S. soldier, Private Keith Maupin, was captured
by guerrillas on April 9 and remains missing. His captors sent video footage
of him to Jazeera a week after he was seized. Since then, there has been
no news on his fate.
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- BLOODY CAMPAIGN
-
- U.S. and Iraqi officials say they expect more attacks
in coming days aimed at disrupting the formal handover to an interim Iraqi
government Wednesday.
-
- Sunday a U.S. C-130 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 629 U.S. soldiers have been killed in action
in Iraq since the start of the war last year.
-
- Near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, gunmen killed six
members of the Iraqi national guard in an attack on a checkpoint, police
said. One of the attackers was also killed.
-
- Saturday evening two car bombs were detonated in a busy
street in Hilla, a town 60 miles south of Baghdad. The U.S. military said
the latest casualty reports showed 23 Iraqis were killed and 58 wounded.
-
- Interim Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi told CBS News
that violence could force a delay in national elections due to be held
by the end of January. But White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Washington
wanted the polls to happen on time.
-
- Allawi has also said emergency laws will be imposed after
his government formally assumes sovereignty on June 30, with a curfew likely
to be declared in some areas of the country.
-
- Iraq's National Security Advisor Muwafak al-Rubaie told
CBS that deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, in U.S. custody, would
be handed to Iraqi police in a process designed to show Iraqis their former
leader in handcuffs and under Iraqi control.
-
- He said that "very soon," two American soldiers
would take a handcuffed Saddam from his cell and turn him over to four
Iraqi policemen. Saddam is then to be taken before a judge, where he will
stand without handcuffs.
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- The threat to kill the three Turks has soured Bush's
visit to Turkey and the kidnappers' 72-hour deadline ends during the summit
in Istanbul at which the controversial issue of a NATO role in Iraq will
be discussed. Officials say NATO will agree to help train fledgling Iraqi
security forces.
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- - Additional reporting by Miral Fahmy in Dubai and Charles
Aldinger in Ankara and Mike Rhea in Washington
-
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