Beheading threat for US marine

ITN News | June 28 2004

A US Marine and a Pakistani driver face beheading by an Islamic group unless Iraqi prisoners are freed.

The kidnappings, apparently carried out by two different groups, are the latest targeting foreigners in Iraq in the violent run-up to the handover of sovereignty.

A group calling itself the Islamic Response Movement, the security wing of the "1920 Revolution Brigades", has reportedly kidnapped a US Marine after luring him from a US base.

A brief video showed 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. Other official documents also displayed his name.

Earlier, Al Arabiya television broadcast a video tape from an unidentified group of gunmen in Iraq saying they had captured a Pakistani man carrying an identity card for US contractor Kellogg, Brown and Root, which works with the US military.

They also threatened to behead him unless Iraqi prisoners are released. They set a deadline of three days.

Meanwhile, seven Turkish hostages are still being held by an Iraqi Islamic group.

They also face beheading unless the group's demands that Turkish companies leave Iraq is met.