American kidnapped in West Bank....

According to CNN:

An American student teaching in West Bank refugee camps was reported missing Wednesday, and his project manager said he had been kidnapped.

A blurred copy of a passport and student card carrying the name Michael Leighton Phillips was obtained by The Associated Press in Gaza. Palestinian security said they did not know of such a group and could not confirmed that the American had been abducted.

Haaretz reports:

Palestinian security officials said Wednesday that they were investigating reports by a previously unknown militant group in the West Bank that it has kidnapped an American student.
The group, calling itself Ansar Assuna, said it had seized Michael Leighton Phillips in Nablus.

Jerusalem Post reports:

A group calling itself Ansar al-Sunna claimed responsibility in a statement it sent to local journalists. The group also said that it faxed a photocopy of the student's passport to news agencies and Palestinian security offices.

According to the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin back in May of 2004, Ansar al-Sunna is known. So, one wonders why if the Jerusalem Post has the name correctly that no one seems to be aware of this:

Ansar al-Sunna is an outgrowth of Ansar al-Islam [Defenders of Islam], a group with ties to Iran and which administration officials have linked to al-Qaeda. Initially operating under the moniker Jund al-Islam (Soldiers of Islam), Ansar al-Islam grew out of the September 2001 unification of several militant Islamist groups which had taken root in the mountains of northern Iraq along the Iranian border.