My apology. Here is the truth about the pacifists sorry existence:
Rift may have led to rescue
Panic among kidnappers cited for breakthrough on hostages' location
OLIVER MOORE AND NICK MEO
With reports from Michael Den Tandt, Hayley Mick and Colin Freeze
TORONTO; BAGHDAD -- The rescue of three Christian aid workers may have been made possible because of a schism among their captors, some of whom panicked after the shooting death of the fourth hostage, a security source in Baghdad says.
The source said yesterday that the Swords of Righteousness Brigades is actually a gang of kidnap-for-money specialists. The killing of one hostage rattled several gang members, and when one was captured, he was persuaded to talk.
Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Singh Sooden, along with Briton Norman Kember and American Tom Fox, were taken hostage four months ago while protesting against foreign military involvement in Iraq. Mr. Fox was found dead several weeks ago and the others were rescued Thursday in a British-led operation.
The two Canadians are expected to leave Iraq today, although it was not clear when Mr. Loney would arrive in Canada, or Mr. Sooden in New Zealand, where he now lives.
The members of Christian Peacemaker Teams, a pacifist organization, had been taken hostage by a group said to have operated in Baghdad for years, apparently treating kidnapping as a profitable rather than ideological enterprise.
"This gang see themselves as employed in the kidnap business, not the murder business, and they did not want to be associated with a dead Westerner. British intelligence was already on to them, and when Tom Fox was killed, that changed the whole dynamic," the source said.
"When one of them was pulled in, it was possible to threaten him with 30 years for accessory to murder. He soon cracked."
Knowing finally the location of the three captives, a special forces team moved in to rescue the hostages. The three men were found in a house in the Abu Ghraib neighbourhood of Baghdad, bound and considerably thinner than they had been but basically in good shape.
"They regarded themselves as businessmen. That's why the hostages weren't harmed," the security source explained.
Another report painted a slightly more complex picture of the group. The Guardian newspaper in Britain published the account of a security source who said the captors had split along ideological lines between hardcore jihadis and kidnap-for-ransom specialists.
According to the report, senior members of the group were part of an Islamic insurgent group while the guards were straightforward criminals in search of money. It was the leaders who shot Mr. Fox, the report said, and a few weeks later one of the guards was captured and revealed the hostages' location.
In the most secure part of Baghdad, the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, the former hostages spent yesterday beginning their recovery. Passing the time resting, bathing and taking walks, they issued a statement thanking those who had prayed for them.
"We don't have words to describe our feelings, our joy and gratitude," the statement read in part.
A weary Mr. Loney called the activist group's Toronto office from Iraq yesterday to tell his colleagues that he had no idea people around the world had worried on his behalf. The hostages had not seen any news coverage of their captivity and had only just learned that Mr. Fox was killed three weeks ago.
According to co-workers at the Toronto CPT office, Mr. Loney has had just a few hours sleep since being freed and is worried he will be swarmed by reporters when he gets back to Canada.
Waiting to embrace him in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., will be his parents, both in their 70s, who have kept out of the public eye while praying for his safe return. Mr. Loney lives in Toronto, but grew up in the town of 75,000 located near Lake Superior.
The community has held prayer vigils throughout the men's captivity and last night hundreds of people attended a prayer service in Mr. Loney's honour. Students at the Catholic high school Mr. Loney attended are planning one for Wednesday to give thanks for his release. By then he is expected to be back in Canada.
Maxine Nash, a member of the Christian Peacemakers Team in Baghdad, said that the group is considering leaving Iraq. She conceded that the pacifist hostages had mixed feelings about being rescued by the military.
"Our mandate is violence reduction, so this was a tough call. Before they were kidnapped, both Tom and Jim had said they didn't want to be rescued," Ms. Nash said.
The security source who described the schism among the abductors said that the former hostages had denounced the U.S. occupation of Iraq after they were freed. Attempts to debrief them were unsuccessful and no gratitude was offered to the soldiers for rescuing them.
"The old English guy wasn't too bad, but the Canadians have continued to be stroppy," the source said. "A lot of people are not too happy about the way they have been."
Although the activists may not have wanted a military rescue, their liberty comes after long efforts by a team of Canadians deployed to Iraq with the sole aim of finding and freeing them. Among the people working on their behalf were RCMP officers, diplomats and members of JTF2, the secretive anti-terror squad. The role of the latter has been acknowledged but no details revealed, leading some to question why the government hasn't been more upfront.
"I don't understand why they wouldn't be," said NDP defence critic Dawn Black. "This wasn't an offensive action, in terms of anything other than saving Canadians. And that's a good thing."
Major Doug Allison, the DND public-affairs officer charged with handling communications about Canadian special forces operations, said that giving out any information could be dangerous.
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