TMZ obtained a trove of photos that allegedly show U.S. Marines posing next to and burning dead bodies of insurgents in Fallujah, Iraq, in 2004. (Warning: graphic images ahead.) 
 
 TMZ leaked 9 of 41 photos that appear to show Marines in Iraq pouring gasoline and then burning the dead bodies of Iraqis. An investigation into the photos has now been opened by the Marine Corps to see whether punishment is necessary. 
 
 "We have no details beyond the photos themselves," Pentagon spokesperson Commander Bill Speaks told The Wire over the phone, contradicting slightly what TMZ reported. The Defense Department plans to investigate the veracity of the photos and possibly the identify the soldiers involved. Burning bodies directly violates the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Crimes against the code can still be prosecuted, even all these years later. 
 
 The full set, which TMZ says was turned over to the military last week, allegedly also shows Marines posing next to corpses, a Marine going through a dean man's pockets, and a dog eating one body. "We have not included all of the photos," TMZ says. "Many are just too gruesome." 
 
 The photos were allegedly taken in Fallujah, which, in 2004, was one of the most dangerous cities for U.S. troops at the height of the Iraq war. In the last few weeks, Al Qaeda insurgents took over the city, and the Iraqi military has debated whether or not to attack to reclaim it. "It is heartbreaking to watch Fallujah descend into this kind of violence again," Jessica Lewis, a two-tour Iraq war veteran, told the CBC recently. 
 
 Here's the full statement from Commander Speaks: ||||| Iraqi Death Scene Pics of Marines Burning Bodies Trigger U.S. Military Investigation [PHOTOS] 
 
 Pics of Marines Burning Bodies Trigger U.S. Military Investigation [PHOTOS] 
 
 EXCLUSIVE 
 
 The United States military is conducting a formal investigation into American soldiers burning the dead bodies of what appear to be Iraqi insurgents.TMZ obtained 41 pictures that we're told were shot in Fallujah in 2004. Two pictures show a Marine appearing to pour gasoline or some other flammable on the remains of what officials believe are 2 insurgents. Two other photos show the bodies on fire. You then see charred remains.Another photo shows a Marine crouched down next to a dead body and mugging for the camera.Still another pic shows a Marine rifling through the pocket of the pants on a corpse.We have not included all of the photos. Many are just too gruesome. There are well over a dozen bodies in the pics and some are covered with flies and one is being eaten by a dog.We turned them all over to the Pentagon last week, and a Pentagon official tells us the pics have triggered a Marine Corps investigation.We're told U.S. Central Command -- the organization in charge of military operations in the Middle East -- also reviewed the photos to determine if they had been previously brought to their attention and determined they had not., Director of Press Operations for the Dept. of Defense, tells TMZ ... the pictures appear to show U.S. soldiers in violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice ... which makes it a crime to mishandle remains.There is no statute of limitations on the crime -- even if the soldiers are now private citizens ... they can still be prosecuted, which could land them behind bars.Col. Warren tells TMZ, "The actions that are depicted in these photos are not in any way representative of the honorable, professional service of the 2 1/2 million service members who went to war in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last decade." ||||| WASHINGTON (AP) — A Marine who was declared a deserter nearly 10 years ago after disappearing in Iraq and then returning to the U.S. claiming he had been kidnapped, only to disappear again, is back in U.S. custody, officials said Sunday. 
 
 FILE - This June 27, 2004, file image from a video broadcast by the Al-Jazeera network, shows a man identified as US Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun. Nearly 10 years ago Hassoun was declared a deserter... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This July 20, 2004, file photo shows Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, center facing, greeted by U.S. Marines from his unit, the 4th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (Anti-Terrorism), at Camp Lejeune, N.C.,... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - This July 5, 2004, file photo shows flowers and balloons scattering the lawn at the home of relatives of U.S. Marine Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun in West Jordan, Utah. Nearly 10 years ago Hassoun was... (Associated Press) 
 
 FILE - In this July 19, 2004 file photo USMC Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun prepares himself as he waits to make a statement to a large crowd of media outside the gates to USMC Base Quantico, Va. Nearly 10 years... (Associated Press) 
 
 Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, 34, turned himself in and was being flown Sunday from an undisclosed location in the Middle East to Norfolk, Va. He is to be moved Monday to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, according to a spokesman, Capt. Eric Flanagan. 
 
 Maj. Gen. Raymond Fox, commander of the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force at Lejeune, will determine whether to court martial Hassoun. 
 
 In a written statement from its headquarters at the Pentagon, the Marine Corps said the Naval Criminal Investigative Service "worked with" Hassoun to turn himself in and return to the U.S. to face charges. 
 
 Hassoun disappeared from his unit in Iraq's western desert in June 2004. The following month he turned up unharmed in Beirut, Lebanon and blamed his disappearance on Islamic extremist kidnappers. He was returned to Lejeune and was about to face the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing when he disappeared again. 
 
 Flanagan, said the Hassoun case is unrelated to the matter of Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who disappeared from his post in eastern Afghanistan in June 2009 under unexplained circumstances. Members of Bergdahl's unit have said he walked away on his own and should face desertion charges. 
 
 The Bergdahl case triggered a flood of controversy in part because of questions about the deal the U.S. struck with the Taliban to gain his release May 31, after five years in captivity, in exchange for freeing five senior Taliban commanders from the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bergdahl has not commented publicly on the circumstances of his disappearance and the Army has made no charges against him. 
 
 It is unclear where Hassoun, 34, has spent the past nine years after disappearing during a visit with relatives in West Jordan, Utah in December 2004. Nor is it known why he chose to turn himself in now. He was born in Lebanon and is a naturalized American citizen. 
 
 He enlisted in the Marine Corps in January 2002 and was trained as a motor vehicle operator. At the time of his disappearance from a Marine camp in Fallujah in western Iraq in June 2004 he was serving as an Arabic translator. That was a particularly difficult year for the Marines in Iraq. In April they launched an offensive to retake Fallujah from Islamic extremists but were ordered to pull back, only to launch a second offensive in November that succeeded in regaining control of the city but at the expense of dozens of Marine lives. 
 
 Seven days after his June 2004 disappearance, a photo of a blindfolded Hassoun with a sword poised above his head turned up on Al-Jazeera television. A group called the National Islamic Resistance/1920 Revolution Brigade claimed to be holding him captive. 
 
 On July 8, 2004, Hassoun contacted American officials in Beirut, Lebanon, claiming to have been kidnapped. He was returned to the U.S. and eventually to Camp Lejeune. After a Navy investigation, the military charged Hassoun with desertion, loss of government property, theft of a military firearm for allegedly leaving the Fallujah camp with a 9 mm service pistol, and theft of a Humvee. 
 
 Shortly after his return to the U.S., Hassoun said in a public statement that he had been captured by insurgents in Iraq and was still a loyal Marine. "I did not desert my post," he told reporters. "I was captured and held against my will by anti-coalition forces for 19 days. This was a very difficult and challenging time for me." 
 
 In the initial months following his return to Lejeune, Hassoun was not held in confinement because charges had not yet been brought against him. He was considered non-deployable until the case was resolved, but he was allowed to make personal trips. 
 
 A January 2005 hearing on the matter was canceled when Hassoun failed to return to Camp Lejeune from his Utah visit. His commanders then officially classified him as a deserter, authorizing civilian police to apprehend him. 
 
 A short time later Hassoun was been placed on a Navy list of "most wanted" fugitives. A mug shot of him appeared on a Navy criminal justice Web site, which claimed the missing corporal used the alias "Jafar." 
 
 In a February 2005 interview with the Associated Press in Salt Lake City, Hassoun's brother, Mohamad, said Wassef Ali Hassoun was a victim of anti-Muslim bias in the U.S. military. The Marine Corps denied this. 
 
 The brother also said the pressure of facing desertion charges was partly to blame for Hassoun's decision to flee while in Utah. 
 
 "Instead of them giving him medals and making him feel good about his service and what he was doing for his country, they gave him an Article 32," Hassoun said of the military court proceedings that his brother was to have faced in January 2005. 
 
 Family members have said they last saw him on Dec. 29, 2004.
– TMZ is venturing well off the Justin Bieber beat with a potentially serious story about the behavior of Marines during the Iraq war. The site has published eight grisly photos that it says show US troops burning the corpses of Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah in 2004, rifling through pockets, and mugging for the camera. It turned over the full set of 41 photos to the US military last week, and a Pentagon spokesman says an investigation is under way, first to determine the veracity of the images and then to possibly identify any of the Marines. If true, the behavior would violate the Uniform Code of Military Justice on the handling of bodies. "We have no details beyond the photos themselves," a Pentagon spokesperson tells the Wire. In a fuller statement, the spokesperson says "the actions depicted in these photos are not what we expect from our service members." Charges could still be filed, even if any of the Marines are no longer in the military. You can see the images at TMZ, but, be warned, they are graphic. (The development comes as Fallujah continues to fall under the sway of al-Qaeda.)