After reports came out yesterday that captured US Marine Wassef Hassoun had been beheaded by the Islamofascist terrorists holding him, the group taking responsibility for his kidnapping now says those reports were false:

An Islamic extremist group denied in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that it had killed a U.S. Marine taken hostage last month. The Ansar al-Sunna Army issued the statement in response to reports by the Lebanese Foreign Ministry that the group killed Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, an American of Lebanese descent. ...

"The media have published, quoting the Lebanese foreign ministry, that the Ansar al-Sunna Army has killed the American hostage, from Lebanese origin, who was kidnapped in Iraq (news - web sites)," the statement said.

"In order to maintain our credibility in all issues we declare that this statement that was attributed to us has no basis of truth," the statement said. It added that any statement in its name "that any statement that is not issued through our site doesn't represent us."

All of this points out the difficulty in reporting on these shadow groups, of course; the media had no choice but to report the earlier story, but until someone can confirm statements like these, we should be careful to consider them preliminary.

On our Independence Day, we can pray that this latest message is correct and that Hassoun is still alive. However, even if he is, he likely will still be slaughtered by the butchers holding him, unless the Iraqis can find their miserable hiding place and free him first.

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» Quantifying "Beyond Stupid" from Crossing the Rubicon2
They are shooting themselves in the foot, but are too stupid to realize it. It's only a matter of time before the entire world loses patience - of this I am convinced - it is so totally repulsive an act: [Read More]

Tracked on July 4, 2004 9:58 AM