They'll behead a Pakistani too...

Ohioguy · July 9, 2004, 7:57pm

Pakistani ‘saw Iraq beheadings’

Amjad Hafeez (back) meets his brother at Islamabad airport
A Pakistani man who has returned home after being freed by hostage-takers in Iraq says three fellow captives were beheaded in front of him.
Amjad Hafeez, 26, arrived at Islamabad airport on Friday morning for an emotional family reunion.

Mr Hafeez, who was working as a driver for an American company when kidnapped on 25 June, was released on 2 July.

He said two of the people beheaded were English-speaking and one Iraqi. There is no confirmation of the executions.

There have been a spate of kidnappings in Iraq in recent months, but only an American, Nick Berg, and a South Korean, Kim Sun-il, are known to have been beheaded.

CIA accusation

Mr Hafeez was reunited with his family amid emotional scenes at Islamabad airport.

The people who were beheaded - their hands and legs were tied and one fat guy came and beheaded all three of them after saying Allah-o-Akbar [God is Great]

Amjad Hafeez

Hafeez’s BBC interview

His mother, Saeeda Jan, said: “I cannot say a word to explain how happy I am to see my son.”

Mr Hafeez told the BBC’s Urdu service he had been abducted at gunpoint near Nasariyah and given an injection which made him unconscious.

He said his kidnappers accused him of being a CIA spy and beat him for three days.

He was then told he was about to be beheaded and he asked to pray for one last time.

Mr Hafeez said he was led into another room where three other captives were beheaded in front of him.

“The people who were beheaded - their hands and legs were tied and one fat guy came and beheaded all three of them one by one after saying Allah-o-Akbar [God is Great].”

Mr Hafeez said his fate was then discussed and he had no idea why he was spared.

Mr Hafeez thanked Pakistani TV channels for screening repeatedly the appeals of his mother for his release.

He added that he would “like to meet President Pervez Musharraf personally to express my thanks”.

The Pakistani president welcomed his release and had said throughout that the kidnapping “was against religion and Islam”.

Mr Hafeez, his family’s only breadwinner, said he was on six months’ leave from his job and may return to Kuwait, where he was based.

But he would never go back to Iraq and urged other Pakistanis not to go there.

His mother said: “I am not afraid if my son goes back to his job, as death and life are in the hands of Allah.”

Mr Hafeez later met Sardar Muhammad Anwar Khan, the president of Pakistan-administered Kashmir where he lives, to thank him.

“Allah has given [Mr Hafeez] a new life,” Mr Khan said.

Mr Hafeez’s captors had threatened to behead him unless local detainees were freed from prison.

Judge_MentuLL_2 · July 9, 2004, 9:44pm

He said two of the people beheaded were English-speaking and one Iraqi. There is no confirmation of the executions.

Wonder where the English speaking scum were from?

I_m_Kool · July 11, 2004, 5:42am

ok. so what is this.
The marine who was threatned to be killed can’t be pakistani simply because he is of lebanese origin, not pakistani. Don’t know how ppl figured that. but don’t go away it only gets better. read on.

Marine’s Kin Defends Son to Fellow Arabs

Saturday July 10, 2004 10:46 PM

AP Photo PRAM102

By HUSSEIN DAKROUB

Associated Press Writer

BEIRUT, Lebanon (AP) - Relatives of a U.S. Marine who surfaced in Beirut nearly three weeks after an apparent kidnapping in Iraq appealed for understanding from fellow Arabs on Saturday, saying the Lebanese-born man emigrated and joined the Marines for financial reasons.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun was doing well and recovering at a U.S. military hospital in Germany after being flown out of Lebanon on Friday, a Marine spokesman said. He is expected to return to his home unit in Camp Lejeune, N.C., next week.

In Hassoun’s native city of Tripoli, his family issued a statement saying he was forced to go to the United States and join the Marines because of the deteriorating economic situation caused by Lebanon’s 1975-90 civil war.

The statement appeared aimed at countering criticism by some fundamentalist Sunni Muslims in Tripoli who accused Hassoun’s family of being ``American agents and collaborators.‘’ It stressed the family’s Arab and Islamic ties, and its loyalty to Lebanon.

We are a family of Lebanese Arab Muslims. We are not seeking to defend ourselves,'' the Hassoun family's statement said. But we would like to thank the Lebanese for sympathizing with one of their sons (Hassoun) who was pushed by the difficult living conditions in their home country to emigrate and forced to work in a position that they may not like.‘’

The statement said Hassoun, 24, was ``driven by the lure of a good life to emigrate, (but he) might have made a mistake by choosing to sign a four-year contract with the U.S. Navy, which expires by the end of 2005.‘’

The Marines are technically part of the Navy.

On Thursday, two people were killed and three others wounded in a Tripoli gunbattle between members of the Hassoun clan and business rivals who taunted them as being American collaborators.

The Hassoun clan, estimated at about 4,000 people, lives mostly in Tripoli and Dinniyah, northern areas where anti-American fundamentalist Sunni Muslim groups are dominant.

Hassoun, who joined the Marines in 2001, vanished June 20 from his base near the troubled Iraqi city of Fallujah where he had been working as an Arabic translator.

A week later, he appeared in a videotape aired on Arab television that showed him being held hostage by militants. His eyes were blindfolded with a white cloth, and a sword was hanging over his head.

Days later, there were conflicting reports about his fate - first that he was beheaded, then that he was alive. He showed up Thursday at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, but it was unclear how he reached Lebanon and contacted American officials.

The Navy is investigating whether the entire kidnapping might have been a hoax.