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Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, who has declared his fealty to the Marine Corps and the United States, apparently now uses the alias "Jafar." That information is right next to his mug shot on the Naval Criminal Investigative Service's list of most wanted fugitives.
And his family in Utah and Lebanon are calling on Hassoun, now twice accused of desertion, to surrender.
"The right thing would be for him to go back and face these charges," Hassoun's older brother Mohamad Hassoun, of West Jordan, told The Salt Lake Tribune.
"We are going to do the same thing if we hear from him," a relative in Tripoli, Lebanon, said Thursday. "We pray for God's will that he's all right, but we know nothing. We've heard nothing."
Hassoun had been scheduled to appear this week for the military equivalent of a grand jury to explore charges that he deserted from his Marine base near Fallujah, Iraq, last summer, and stole his 9 mm service weapon and a Humvee. That proceeding, which could have led to a court-martial, has been canceled.
Family members say they last heard from Hassoun on Dec. 29, when he reported by cell phone that he was in Washington, D.C., and on his way to the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, N.C., after a weeklong holiday leave in Utah. When he failed to arrive as scheduled Jan. 5, he was declared a deserter, just as he had been when he failed to report for duty in Iraq on June 20.
Hassoun's placement this week on the NCIS list puts him among a select group of fugitives, some of whom are being hunted on allegations of terrorism, murder, conspiracy to commit murder, indecent assault and rape.
Hassoun, a Muslim with dual American and Lebanese citizenship, was last seen Dec. 28 when family dropped him at the Salt Lake City International Airport. News reports, citing unidentified Pentagon and Marine sources cited a paper trail of bank receipts suggesting Hassoun traveled to Canada, then to Lebanon, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.
Military officials insist, however, that Hassoun has no passport. And Mohamad Hassoun confirmed reports from Lebanese government officials that the Marine is not allowed back in that country.
"You wouldn't go back if they were going to arrest you, would you?" he said.
Eighteen days after he vanished from Iraq, Hassoun turned up in Beirut. In the interim, Al-Jazeera, the Arab television network, aired a video showing a blindfolded Hassoun with a sword brandished above his head. Reports that he had been "slaughtered" were followed by others saying he was alive and safe.
Since returning to the United States, Hassoun twice pledged his fidelity to the Marine Corps, and returned to full duty in the fall. He spent August and most of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, visiting family in Utah.
In November, U.S. soldiers found Hassoun's military ID, uniform and civilian passport in the heart of Fallujah, a hotbed of violent insurgency.
On Dec. 9, Hassoun was charged with desertion and theft. The theft charges carry penalties of 10 years in prison, and the desertion five years unless Hassoun were to be found a wartime deserter, punishable by up to life in prison.
His first military appearance came Dec. 21, when a Marine counterintelligence operative was to testify that Hassoun was an Arabic translator with Human Exploitation Team 9 in Iraq. That unit's job was to blend in with the civilian population to gain information, and to keep sensitive information about the Fallujah base from leaking. The hearing was abruptly postponed when Hassoun said he wanted to retain a civilian attorney to work with his military counsel.
Hassoun never was detained. Marine spokesmen say his prompt return from his two Utah visits suggested he was not considered a flight risk, which was why he was granted holiday leave.
Now that he is AWOL again, Camp Lejeune spokesman Maj. Matt Morgan says the NCIS will lead the search for him.
"The Marine Corps doesn't send guys out looking for people," Morgan said. "Our breadth of control really ends when we declare him a deserter."
Theories and random commentary on Hassoun's whereabouts abound on the so-called blogosphere. The dozens of Internet rantings - many racist and ill-informed - are posted by anyone from retired military personnel and pro-American groups to freelance sleuths.
A sample: "This shows our enemies we are silly incompetents and fatally naive idiots. I can only hope Hassoun drank too much infidel booze over this 'holiday leave,' crashed his stolen vehicle, and is now lost in an unknown rural ditch somewhere . . . Or, more simply, that he did us all a favor and hanged himself with a burqa on New Year's Day."
Mohamad Hassoun, a devout Muslim who attends daily prayer sessions in a West Valley City mosque, says Utah's Islamic community has never wavered in its support.
He acknowledges the Hassoun family's international reach - distant relatives live in Lebanon, Canada, the United States, Brazil and Australia - but he knows of none who have heard from the missing Marine.
Mohamad Hassoun also refuses to say whether family members, including Wassef Hassoun's wife, have been sequestered for questioning by the U.S. military.
Meanwhile, a fellow Marine and Muslim-American e-mailed the Tribune an "open letter" to Hassoun, calling on him to return to Camp Lejeune "and face the charges of desertion with honor."
"There are those in our Arab American Communities who will applaud your actions in defiance of the Administrations Iraq Policy. I want you to remember that it is not our job to analyze or defy policy - it is not for us to question why, but it is for us to do or die," writes Gunnery Sgt. Jamal Baadani. "Come home Marine!"
Mohamad Hassoun, who wonders about his brother's financial situation, also worries about his stamina on the run.
"How long can you sustain being away?" he said. "It's not a matter of days or months. This is for life."
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Tribune reporter Robert Gehrke contributed to this story.