Captive Marine’s family, friends ask for prayers

WEST JORDAN, Utah – The family of a Marine taken hostage in Iraq and threatened with beheading has asked people around the world to pray for his safe return.

The family of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun issued a brief statement late Sunday confirming that a hostage videotaped in Iraq was the missing soldier, who is of Middle Eastern origin.

“In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate, we accept destiny with its good and its bad,” Hassoun family friend and spokesman Tarek Nosseir said outside the family’s home. “We pray and we plead for his safe release and we ask all people of the world to join us in our prayers. May God bless us all.”

In the video, the hostage had a white blindfold covering his eyes. He wore military fatigues, and his mustache was trimmed. The U.S. military said Hassoun was of Lebanese descent.

Arab satellite television network Al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape of Hassoun by a militant group threatening to behead him if the U.S. military did not release all prisoners in Iraq.

The tape displayed a Marine identification card in the name of Wassef Ali Hassoun. The U.S. military said a corporal by that name had been missing from his unit in the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force since June 21.

Throughout Sunday, Hassoun’s West Jordan relatives radiated an intense sense of privacy and refused comment. After reporters began gathering around their home, they called West Jordan police to deflect inquiries.

Judy Hassoun, Wassef’s former sister-in-law, said by telephone from Bacliff, Texas, that Hassoun is serving his second stint in Iraq. She did not know he was missing and has not seen Wassef in about five years.

“He is a great student. He went to American school in Lebanon,” she said. She said he speaks fluent French and is “very peaceful, but very brave, very loving.”

Judy Hassoun said Wassef studied hard and “always wanted to get good grades. He helped everybody. He helped his mother a lot.”

Judy Hassoun said she had recently received a letter from a cousin and had been afraid to open it, fearful of the news it might contain. “I did open it. It was just a letter.”

“I pray for all of them over there. I’ve got a grandson in the Air Force. We are a military family. All my children have been in the service,” she said.

Judy Hassoun said Wassef moved to the Salt Lake City area and joined the Marines after moving there. Hassoun’s relatives live in a multi-story home in an upscale West Jordan subdivision.

Utah residents late Sunday extended their prayers and best wishes.

“We are very sorry for what happened,” said Ali Mohammed, 46, while taking a break from tidying up after evening prayers at Al-Noor Mosque in Salt Lake City, where Hassoun worships when he is home.

Rod Davidson, a 62-year-old Vietnam veteran, called the hostage taking “sickening” as he left a late viewing of the anti-Bush administration movie “Fahrenheit 9/11.”

“This kid, man, all I can say, I pray for him,” said Davidson. “I have boys the same age. Man, that blows me away.”