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Group denies killing US Marine, Iraq pipeline hit
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-07-05 09:36 An Islamist militant group in Iraq denied on
Sunday it had beheaded U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun, seen in earlier televised
pictures being threatened with a sword by captors.
While Washington sought to verify what had happened to Hassoun, guerrillas
attacked a strategic pipeline linking Iraq's northern and southern oil fields,
further cutting exports already halved by sabotage to another pipeline 24 hours
earlier.
A television image
aired by Al Jazeera on June 27, 2004 shows a blindfolded man dressed in
camouflage believed to be U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun sitting in a
chair with a hand holding a sword above his head. A militant group said on
July 3, 2004, it had beheaded U.S. Marine Wassef Ali Hassoun after
kidnapping him in Iraq and was holding another "infidel" hostage.
[Reuters] | Fears for Lebanese-born Hassoun, a 24-year-old corporal, had risen after a
statement appeared on two Internet sites on Saturday saying the Army of Ansar
al-Sunna had decapitated him.
"This statement that claimed to be from us has no basis in truth," the Army
of Ansar al-Sunna said on Sunday on what it called its official Web site.
There was no way to verify which, if either, of the statements attributed to
Ansar al-Sunna was authentic. The U.S. military, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry
and Hassoun's family said they had no evidence he was dead.
Compounding confusion, Hassoun's kidnapping was first claimed by a group
calling itself the Islamic Response Movement.
Arabic Al Jazeera television aired a video tape a week ago of militants
holding a sword over a blindfolded Hassoun. The U.S. military says Hassoun has
been absent from his unit since June 21.
OIL PIPELINE SABOTAGE
Smoke rising into the air from the pipeline sabotaged on Sunday in the
Hawijat al-Fallujah area could be seen from Baghdad some 50 miles to the
northeast.
Attacks on the oil industry -- Iraq's main source of revenue -- could hinder
the new Iraqi interim government's attempt to boost the economy and improve poor
living conditions that feed insurgency and political unrest.
Industry insiders say crude was being secretly pumped through the pipeline
from northern Kirkuk fields for export through two offshore southern terminals.
"(The saboteurs) seem to have access to maps and inside information about
pumping. They do not want anybody to do business in Iraq, and they are
succeeding," said an international oil company executive, who declined to be
named.
Oil prices are hovering around $36 a barrel for Brent crude and $2 higher for
U.S. light crude, partly as a result of uncertainty of Iraqi supplies because
the industry has been a target for guerrillas.
Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said his interim government's first week in
office since Washington handed over sovereignty had been successful,
particularly in putting Saddam Hussein before an Iraqi judge.
"We have witnessed a drop in insurgency activities so far. We hope this drop
will continue," Allawi, expected soon to outline his government's plans to stamp
out guerrilla attacks, told American ABC television.
ALLAWI: "WE WILL WIN"
"I am sure that we will win," said Allawi, whose government shares
Washington's view that Saddam supporters and foreign Islamic militants are
behind guerrilla attacks.
Allawi has already proposed offering an amnesty to Iraqis who resisted the
U.S.-led occupation "out of a sense of desperation" to separate them from
foreign militants and others whose sole objective he said was to kill and make
Iraq fail.
But he said militias, including those loyal to firebrand Shi'ite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr who led a rebellion against the U.S.-led occupation, must lay
down their weapons.
"The position of the government is very clear. There is no room for any
militias to operate in Iraq," Allawi said.
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari criticized nearby countries for backing
militants, but did not name any.
"Why they are doing it we cannot say, but we know where the support is coming
from. We have plans to put this before the public within days and it will have a
substantial impact," Zebari told Britain's Sunday Telegraph newspaper.
U.S. President Bush, campaigning for re-election in November amid slipping
opinion poll ratings over his Iraq policy, praised the sacrifices of U.S.
troops.
"We must be relentless and determined and do our duty," Bush told cheering,
flag-waving supporters in Charleston, West Virginia, vowing there could be no
negotiation with terrorists.
More than 630 American soldiers have been killed in combat since the U.S.-led
invasion in March last year.
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