Raid frees Canadians in Iraq
Canada's elite JTF2 unit played major role

Allan Woods and Mary Vallis
Friday, March 24, 2006 - CanWest News Service

(Editor's Note: the involvement of elite special forces commandos, notably Britain's "Special Air Services" [SAS] and Canada's "Joint Task Force 2" [JTF2], in freeing the Christian Peacemakers is ironic, given the pivotal role of special forces in counter-insurgency. JTF2 is rumored to be in Afghanistan fighting the Islamist insurgency there, while several months ago, plainclothes British SAS commandos were arrested by police in Southern Iraq during a covert operation; British forces subsequently attacked the jail where the SAS men were being held and freed them, arousing much anger and resentment in the local Sh'ite community).

Three hostages, two Canadian and one British, are free after almost four months in captivity in Iraq following a lightning raid by Canadian, British and U.S. forces that found them alone and unharmed, but failed to turn up their captors. Reports suggest JTF2, Canada's elite commando unit, played a major role in the rescue. Toronto's James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Sooden, a 32-year-old Montrealer who now lives in New Zealand, spent 118 days at the mercy of their Iraqi kidnappers.

The two Canadians, along with Briton Norman Kember and American Tom Fox, who was killed two weeks ago, were snatched off the streets of Baghdad on Nov. 26. All were members of the pacifist Christian Peacemaker Team, a non-governmental organization opposed to the three-year-old Iraq invasion.

A British-led strike force ended their ordeal at 8 a.m. local time, just three hours after American forces detained two Iraqis and extracted the whereabouts of the hostages.

The Ottawa Citizen has learned that the raid was prompted after British Special Air Service (SAS) and MI6, the country's (foreign) spy agency, opened negotiations with a kidnapping network after studying hostage tapes released to Arab TV stations. Eavesdropping teams also tried to intercept cellphone conversations between the kidnappers and Arab television journalists.

The intelligence network, led by SAS's Black Task Force, was launched after the deaths of Ken Bigley and Margaret Hassan last year. As a result, SAS and senior British embassy officials devised an intense military intelligence progam aimed at tracking hostages in Iraq.

"It was three hours between when we got the information and when we released the hostages," said Maj.-Gen. Rick Lynch, a U.S. military spokesman in Iraq.

Thursday's rescue mission had soldiers arrive at the house in cars disguised as taxis and pickup trucks. The hostages were found bound, but unsupervised, in a house and no shots were fired during the operation.

A colleague of the three men, Anita David, met with them at the British embassy in Baghdad on Thursday and described them as "skinny but wonderful" and "mentally sharp" despite their prolonged deprivation.

Loney reportedly lost about nine kilograms (20 pounds), but David said the Canadians struggled to stay in shape during their confinement. Loney did stretching exercises while Sooden performed sit-ups and regularly ran up and down a flight of stairs.

All three men were bemused as they watched television reports of their ordeal, but they also spent time mourning the murder of Fox, which they suspected had occurred but only confirmed Thursday.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was "extremely relieved" when he was awakened early Thursday morning with word of their return to freedom. Hours later, he spoke with the two men, who were receiving medical checkups and debriefings in Baghdad's ultra-safe Green Zone.

"They were obviously overjoyed. One could sense at the same time a degree of fatigue in their voices," Harper told reporters. "They're going to have a difficult time ... As well as this has worked out, we all know that to be the victim of such events creates some pretty serious things that people have to deal with."

The prime minister also conveyed his thanks to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and to U.S. Ambassador David Wilkins.

Diplomats, soldiers and intelligence officials from the three countries had been working closely together for "weeks and weeks," along with civilians and Iraqis in order to secure the hostages' release, said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw.

Harper said there were "indications" in the days leading up to the decision to storm the compound "that such a raid might be imminent," but he did not elaborate.

The Canadian contingent is believed to have included Royal Canadian Mounted Police and JTF2 -- the country's special forces unit -- who were, according to Harper, "fully engaged and fully aware of what was going on."

Citing national security, the prime minister would only officially say that there were operatives from "various agencies and ministers involved and on the ground."

The U.S. military described the hostage-takers, who are still being sought, as a "kidnapping cell that has been robust over the past several months." Loney reportedly decried his captors, who go by the name Swords of Righteousness Brigade, calling them a simple criminal gang.

Harper ruled out suggestions that a ransom had been paid to the kidnappers to secure the release.

Britain's High Commissioner in Ottawa, David Reddaway, said the three Christian Peacemakers will undergo a thorough debriefing about their experience so military and Iraqi law enforcement can try to obtain information about the several hundred other foreign hostages in the country, and the thousands of Iraqi hostages captured by insurgents.

"Anything we can learn about how this was all done will be very useful for another time," he said.

After that, they will be shuttled back to their respective homes with the greatest of speed.

© The Vancouver Sun 2006