U.S. Looks Into Reports That Missing Marine Is Safe in Lebanon

The State Department said Wednesday that it was trying to verify reports that a Marine who disappeared last month in Iraq had turned up safe in his native Lebanon.

Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun contacted family members in West Jordan, Utah, and in Tripoli, Lebanon, and told them he had contacted the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and asked to be picked up from an undisclosed location in Lebanon, CNN reported, citing a source close to his family.

The source said Hassoun sounded healthy and happy.

CNN quoted the source as saying Hassoun’s family was awaiting word from the embassy in Beirut.

“Our embassy in Beirut received reports that Hassoun was in Lebanon and was safe. At this point they’re trying to find out the circumstances and what they can do for him,” a senior State Department official said.

After spending a couple of hours with Hassoun’s relatives in West Jordan, Utah, local Muslim leader and family spokesman Tarek Nosseir declined to comment on the whereabouts of the missing Marine.

Nosseir told reporters that “the family has not heard from Hassoun.”

Two FBI agents visited the Marine’s family just outside Salt Lake City to find out what the family had learned, said a Federal Bureau of Investigations spokeswoman, Kelly Kleinvachter.

“They wanted to know what they are hearing, how they’re getting information,” Kleinvachter said. She said that the inquiry was part of the FBI’s investigation into why a U.S. citizen was kidnapped and that the family was not under investigation.

Hassoun, a Marine linguist from the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, was last seen with his unit June 19. The circumstances of his disappearance from a U.S. military base in Iraq are not clear.

NBC News reported Wednesday that the Navy had opened an investigation into Hassoun’s disappearance, and was looking into the possibility that his kidnapping was a hoax.

A Pentagon spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

Statements in Arabic posted Saturday on two Internet sites claimed that a militant group had beheaded the 24-year-old corporal. But the Islamist group, the Ansar al Sunna Army, denied the claim, which was put out in its name.

Another group, the Islamic Response Movement, said in a statement reported Monday on Al Jazeera television that it had moved the Marine to “a place of safety” after he pledged not to return to the American armed forces.