An Iraqi militant group issued footage yesterday of a man it said was a captured US Marine and threatened to behead him.
Video shown on Qatar-based Arabic channel Al Jazeerashowed a blindfolded man in a camouflage uniform, and an apparent Marine Corps identity card that named him as Mr Wassef Ali Hassoun.
Jazeerasaid the group threatened to behead Mr Hassoun unless Iraqi prisoners are freed.
A US military spokesman said a Marine by that name was missing from his unit but could not confirm he had been taken hostage. The spokesman said the Marine, who was of Lebanese descent, belonged to the First Marine Expeditionary Force and had been missing since June 21st.
Militants in Iraq have already seized three Turks and a Pakistani man over the past week in a new spate of kidnappings just days before the formal handover of sovereignty by occupying forces to an interim Iraqi government on June 30th.
Fighters loyal to al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on Saturday they were holding the Turks and would behead them within 72 hours unless Turks stopped working with US forces.
In a separate video tape aired on Al Arabiyatelevision yesterday, unidentified gunmen said they had seized a Pakistani hostage near Balad, north of Baghdad, and would kill him within three days unless Iraqi prisoners were released from jail.
The footage showed the man, who had an identity card given to contractors working for US forces, urging Pakistan's president to close the country's embassy in Iraq.
Zarqawi's group beheaded a South Korean hostage last week after Seoul rejected a demand to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and last month decapitated a US captive.