IRAQ: An Islamist militant group denied yesterday it had beheaded a US marine missing in Iraq and seen earlier being threatened by his captors with a sword.
The confusion surrounding the fate of the marine came as saboteurs attacked the oil pipeline linking Iraq's northern and southern fields yesterday.
Fears for Lebanese-born Corporal Wassef Ali Hassoun had risen after a statement appeared on two Islamist websites on Saturday saying the Army of Ansar al-Sunna had decapitated him.
"This statement that claimed to be from us has no basis in truth," the Army of Ansar al-Sunna said on what it called its official website. However, the group said it believed that killing "such filth brings one closer to God".
To compound the confusion, Corporal Hassoun's kidnapping was first claimed by a group calling itself the Islamic Response Movement, security wing of the 1920 Revolution Brigades.
The US military, the Lebanese foreign ministry and Corporal Hassoun's family said they had no evidence he was dead.
The US military says he has been absent from his unit since June 21st. His Lebanese father has urged his son's captors to have mercy on him as a Muslim and an Arab. Saturday's statement attributed to the Army of Ansar al-Sunna said Corporal Hassoun had been kidnapped after a love affair with an Arab woman lured him from his base.
Iran said it wanted Saddam prosecuted on charges related to the lengthy war he waged against the Islamic republic.
Saddam appeared in court on Thursday and was told by an Iraqi judge he would face charges relating to seven alleged crimes spanning three decades, but no mention was made of the 1980-1988 war against Iran.
"Iran will definitely submit an indictment to the court," foreign ministry spokesman Mr Hamid Reza Asefi said in Tehran.
Meanwhile, columns of smoke were rising last night hundreds of metres from a section of the strategic pipeline in the Hawijat al-Fallujah area, some 80 km southwest of Baghdad, which was attacked.
Industry insiders say northern crude was being secretly pumped through the pipeline for export through two offshore southern terminals.
Northern crude is usually pumped through a pipeline to Turkey, but sabotage has forced Iraq to divert flows south.
Exports from the southern terminals, which account for all of Iraq's oil exports, fell to 960,000 barrels per day on Saturday after saboteurs blew a hole in one of two pipelines feeding them.
Iraqi militias, including those loyal to the firebrand Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr must lay down their weapons, Iraq's interim Prime Minister Mr Iyad Allawi demanded on US television yesterday.
Mr Allawi said he met on Saturday with a delegation trying to mediate between the government and Sadr, who has urged Iraqis to oppose the continued presence of around 160,000 mainly US foreign troops in Iraq.
Sadr has indicated his militia would disarm if they were offered amnesty and that was possible, Mr Allawi said.
Sadr also wants "to be part of the political process," he said. "Anybody who respects the rule of law and the human rights is welcome to be part of Iraq."