Local Marines Vow Revenge

[thedrifter]

Local Marines Vow Revenge
6/28/2004

By Ray Riley/WCJB TV 20 News

Locally many marines are praying for their captured brother Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun. Cpl. Hassoun was shown on the Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera Sunday blindfolded and with a sword to his throat.

A militant group is threatening to kill Cpl. Hassoun unless Iraqi prisoners are released from "occupational prisons."

Upon hearing the news soldiers say they are angry, and the Marine’s capture makes the war on terror a lot more personal. Local marines know, marines around the county would do anything to help a brother in trouble.

"We're going to come back two or three times stronger than what we did before because now we are mad," says Gunnery Sergeant Anderson.

As Cpl. Hassoun’s life hangs in the balance, locals marines say the forces in Iraq will not stop until he is brought safely home.

http://www.wcjb.com/news.asp?id=10035


Ellie

[thedrifter]

City Reacts to Marine's Capture, Threatened Beheading
Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun Faces Decapitation

POSTED: 3:47 pm PDT June 28, 2004
UPDATED: 8:11 am PDT June 29, 2004

OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- The people of Oceanside ride the waves of emotion that come with being a military town in war-time, but few days recently have been more difficult than Monday, when its citizens reflected on the kidnapping and threatened beheading of a Camp Pendleton Marine.

Downtown, the city is adorned with yellow ribbons and American flags, emblems for their military neighbors in peril who have been called to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Now they are also reminders of Camp Pendelton Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who was captured by Middle Eastern militants on June 21 and now is facing decapitation at the hands of his captor.

Harry Ammons, a former Marine and a combat veteran, is placing his faith in the Marines to find Hassoun, who he calls a warrior, not a victim.

"Right now this young man is going through a lot," said Ammons. "He's probably being abused, probably being mistreated in many ways that none of us would ever want to be -- but at the same time he knows he's a Marine."

Ammons said he was sure that Hassoun would take comfort in the fact that his fellow members of the military were moving heaven and earth to locate him.

"He knows that every Marine in Baghdad and Iraq is looking for him," said Ammons. "So there's a lot of hope on his part, but he also knows that if he does die, he's going to die in the service of his country and this is something that's very important for people to understand."

In Oceanside, people like local resident Jeff Batiste do understand.

"When some of our people get caught or something happens to them, it's a sad feeling," said Batiste. "I mean, everybody around here goes through the same thing, and we all feel the same way."

Another thing that people in Oceanside are doing -- not only for Hassoun but also for all the other service people now in Iraq and other places around the world -- is praying.

"I have a lot of faith in prayer," said Oceanside's Roseanne Couto. "I just pray that eventually these beheadings will stop."

The people NBC 7/39 spoke also emphasized that regardless of how they feel about the war, the most important thing is to support the troops.

http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/3470144/detail.html


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Hostage listed as Lejeune corporal
June 29,2004
ERIC STEINKOPFF
DAILY NEWS STAFF

While the father of a missing Marine pleaded Monday for his son's release, members of the Camp Lejeune community - among whom 24-year-old Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun lived before deploying to Iraq - expressed their outrage at word of his alleged abduction by terrorists.

The Lebanese-born Hassoun, a truck driver assigned to I Marine Expeditionary Force after deployment to Iraq from Lejeune, was originally reassigned from the anti-terrorist 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade to the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Marine Regiment before it deployed in March, according to a spokesman for U.S Central Command. He was last seen June 19, according to a statement issued Monday by Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF-I), a branch of U.S. Central Command.

International media, including the Associated Press, have reported that Iraqi insurgents took Hassoun hostage and have threatened to behead him.

The U.S. military's official statement, according to the Associated Press, is that Hassoun, a Muslim whose family lives in Utah, has gone on "unauthorized absence."

According to MNF-I, Naval Criminal Investigative Service agents are looking into the matter.

"We know that he's been missing from his unit and we're working to confirm the fact that he's being held hostage," said Capt. Dan McSweeney, a spokesman with Marine Corps Headquarters.

Marines from the same duty station are often loaned to other units as needed for reinforcements under the Fleet Assistance Program. Both the 4th MEB and 2/2 are part of Camp Lejeune's 2nd Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force.

As Iraq is considered the "Area Of Responsibility" for the West Coast's I MEF, East Coast Marine units are normally attached to their command structure while there.

Hassoun, originally from the northern Lebanese town of Al-Safira, lived in Tripoli before he immigrated during the early 1990s to the United States, according to the Associated Press.

He lived with his brother near Salt Lake City before joining the Marines.

As word of Hassoun's reported kidnapping spread Monday, Camp Lejeune Marines and their spouses shared strong feelings about the abductions and grisly executions that have occurred in Iraq since May 1, 2003.

Lisa Harris, who has been married to a Marine truck driver from 2nd Transportation Support Battalion, 2nd Force Service Support Group for four years, knows too well the unease shared by Marine families with loved ones on the ground in Iraq.

"I think it's stupid," said Harris as she rocked her 2-year-old son Ryan and her 1-year-old daughter Destini in their two-seat stroller.

"We went over there to get them out of their misery with Saddam Hussein (as) he tortured a lot of people. For us to go over there and give them a free country like we have and then they kidnap our people - it's just wrong."

Harris was six-months pregnant in January 2003 when her husband deployed for the war in Iraq.

"It's hard to have a loved one in danger - it's really hard," Harris said. "What are you going to tell his kids if he doesn't come home? I wouldn't wish that on anybody."

Some Marines, by comparison, said they feel frustrated and handcuffed by the rules of engagement that put U.S. troops in danger.

Some believe those they're protecting aren't reciprocating the strict behavioral guidelines that the military is forced to follow.

Negotiating with terrorists, said Lance Cpl. John Strobridge, is simply not an option.

"You can't deal with those people - you can't take the chance," said Strobridge, who recently returned from a three-month deployment to Haiti with the 3rd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment. "There's no guarantee that they'll let our people go."

Contact Eric Steinkopff at esteinkopff@jdnews.com or 353-1171, Ext. 236.


http://www.jacksonvilledailynews.com/SiteProcessor.cfm?Template=/GlobalTemplates/Details.cfm&StoryID=23693&Section=News


Ellie

[thedrifter]

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ
Family Distraught Over Marine's Plight

By David Kelly and Tony Perry, Times Staff Writers


WEST JORDAN, Utah — The family of Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, distraught over the apparent kidnapping of their son in Iraq, spent Monday huddled in their home just south of Salt Lake City and asked the world to pray for the release of their child.

"In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate," said Tarek Nosseir, a family friend who is acting as a spokesman, "we ask all of the people of the world to pray for the safe return of Wassef and all hostages in Iraq."

The family, who covered the windows in their large home with heavy drapes to keep reporters from looking inside, said it would release no further statements for the time being.

On a videotape delivered to the Al Jazeera satellite television channel Sunday, 24-year-old Hassoun is seen blindfolded, with a sword held over his head.

A group calling itself the Islamic Response included a message saying Hassoun would be beheaded unless Iraqis being held in "occupation jails" were released. No deadline was given.

Hassoun, assigned to the Camp Pendleton-based 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was serving as a translator and cultural liaison between the Marines and the Iraqi civilian population. He also worked as a driver when Marines visited farms and villages in the far-flung Al Anbar province, the heart of the so-called Sunni Triangle. Part of the Marine mission is to convince Iraqis that Americans are in their country as liberators, not occupiers.

The military had listed Hassoun as "UA" since he failed to report for duty June 20. The initials stand for Unauthorized Absence, a term applied when Marines, for example, fail to return from leave.

"Based on his personal situation, there was reason to suspect that he was heading over to Lebanon," Army Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the top U.S. military spokesman in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad.

Salt Lake City's tightknit Muslim community expressed revulsion at the kidnapping. Many remembered Hassoun as a thoroughly American young man who occasionally attended services at the city's two mosques.

"He was easygoing, not very religious," Irshad Aadil said as he was leaving the Masjid Al Noor, a mosque in downtown Salt Lake City. "Wassef and his brother Sami were very well integrated into American culture."

Aadil believed that somehow Hassoun would be freed, perhaps because the kidnappers could get something in exchange for a Marine or because they would not kill a fellow Muslim.

"I don't think they will kill them, I think they will hold them until they get something in return," he said.

At the Khadeeja mosque here, where the Hassoun family regularly worships, Imam Shuiab-ud Din held a prayer service Monday night asking for the safe return of the hostage.

"The Hassouns have a lot of recognition in the community," Din said, referring the family's six sons. "They are grieving a lot right now. The males are holding up better than the mother, who is very upset as you would expect. My advice to them was to be patient and, God willing, Wassef will be released."

The imam said Hassoun didn't attend the mosque as much as his brothers, due largely to his commitments in the military.

Hassoun was born in northern Lebanon and immigrated to the United States in the 1990s. He is a U.S. citizen and is married, officials said. Before enlisting in the Marine Corps, he lived with his brother Mohammed in West Jordan about 12 miles south of Salt Lake City.

In Tripoli, Lebanon, Hassoun's father, Ali Mohammed Hassoun, called for the group holding his son to release him. He told Associated Press that his son has not been involved in combat between Marines and insurgents.

"I appeal to the kidnappers, and to their conscience and faith, to release my son," Hassoun said. "He is not a fighter. I hope that they will respond favorably to my appeal. May God reward them."

At the Marine base in Fallouja, a spokesman for the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said that the Marines would never agree to the demand to release Iraqi prisoners.

"We don't negotiate with terrorists," said the spokesman, Maj. T.V. Johnson. After Hassoun was reported missing, Marines began a search and interviewed all troops who had had recent contact with him.

Johnson said Marines could not explain how Hassoun might have been captured. In the Al Jazeera video, the Islamic Response group said he was "lured" off a Marine base but did not provide details.

Sami Hassoun, Wassef Hassoun's brother, told Associated Press in Tripoli that contacts were being made with Arab politicians and Islamic groups in Iraq to enlist their help in freeing the U.S. corporal.

"We are trying to send word through all channels that he is a Lebanese, Arab and a Muslim," another family member was quoted as saying.

http://www.latimes.com/la-na-hassoun29jun29,1,2532643.story


Ellie