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A candle lit vigil is held by foreign Christian Peacemaker Teams activists and Palestinians in the divided West Bank town of Hebron for the four members of CPT snatched 100 days ago in Iraq, 05 March 2006. Canadian peace activists James Loney, 41 and Harmeet Sooden, 32, along with Briton Norman Kember, 74, and American Tom Fox 54, were kidnapped in Baghdad at gunpoint on November 26 by a group calling itself the Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness. The men were part of a delegation for Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that dispatches volunteers to crisis areas in a bid to reduce armed conflict.AFP / Getty Images

An angry soldier told a Canadian hostage in Iraq that many people risked their lives to rescue him from terrorist kidnappers, according to a new book.

Captivity by Christian activist James Loney reveals how a team of Mounties, soldiers and diplomats teamed up for a joint British-Canadian operation that apparently relied heavily on the mass surveillance of cellphone signals to pinpoint the hostages and their captors.

Federal officials tend to release few details about NEOs - non-combatant evacuation operations - risky and expensive missions to rescue Canadians who disappear in war zones.

Mr. Loney spent four months in captivity in late 2005 and early 2006. He was among four captured activists - two Canadians, one British and one American - associated with Christian Peacemaker Teams, a religious group that aims to stop wars with persuasion.

Snatched by Kalashnikov-wielding gunmen and shuffled between safe houses in Baghdad, Mr. Loney was a prisoner for 120 days. One morning, a team of British Special Forces soldiers entered a house without a firefight to free the hostages.

It has long been rumoured that just before the commandos arrived, the captors were called on their cellphones and told that it was in their best interests to leave - and very quickly.

Mr. Loney writes he doesn't know if those rumours are true. But he is clearer on the aftermath.

"You have no idea how many people were involved, how many people risked their lives to get you out," one "angry" soldier told Mr. Loney after he was taken to safety in a tank.

The soldier said future Christian Peacemaker teams should "think about that before they decide to send anybody else here."

An RCMP inspector, Gordon Black, greeted Mr. Loney in Baghdad's Green Zone. The Mountie told him he was nearly hit by mortars on the day he arrived in Baghdad. "If they'd hit a minute sooner, I'd be dead," he told Mr. Loney.

Mr. Loney writes that he was shown the Canadian "operations room" where the rescue was planned. Although he thought he'd encounter hostility because his presence in the war zone had put people in danger, he was greeted with applause.

The windowless room had 10 computer workstations. Some of the staff were in uniforms and some in civilian clothes. "People worked here 24 hours a day, manning phones, following up on leads, talking to Ottawa," he marvels. "I can't believe it."

He was also greeted warmly at Canada's makeshift embassy by chargé d'affaires Stewart Henderson and his young assistant, Sonia Hooykaas, who had a dinner in his honour. They told him the Department of Foreign Affairs had just mandated they travel in half-a-million-dollar armoured cars because one of their vehicles was shot up a month before.

Mr. Loney writes that the rescue officials gave him some details of their operation. "By monitoring all the cellphone conversation going in and out of Baghdad, and by tracking different leads, they gradually narrowed in on the group that was holding us."

A British book about the mission asserts that the release was preceded by 50 special-forces raids and the military interrogations of 47 people. By then, a U.S. hostage had been killed.



Although enormously grateful for the rescue effort, Mr. Loney writes that he was frequently conflicted.

A staunch pacifist, he declined to support the eventual prosecution of his suspected captors for fear they could face the death penalty. And before he left Iraq, he even had mixed feelings about whether he should take a congratulatory phone call from Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

"What! Stephen Harper! Tell me he didn't win a majority!" Mr. Loney recalls erupting, upon learning Canada had elected a new Prime Minister during his captivity. The Conservatives had supported calls for Canada to join the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Mr. Loney soon got over his misgivings. "Thank you. For everything. … I mean … The government did so much," he told the Prime Minister.

.......

Behind the scenes, federal agents have gone to great trouble and expense to work at freeing Canadians kidnapped in some of the word's more forlorn countries. The efforts don't always pay off.

Robert Fowler and Louis Guay (Niger)

In 2008, the two former Canadian diplomats were captured in Niger while working for the United Nations.

Dozens of Canadian diplomats, spies, police and special-forces soldiers journeyed to the African desert in hopes of saving them from the clutches of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. The diplomats and European hostages were freed by a negotiated ransom; Canada denies having helped to pay it.

Mellissa Fung (Afghanistan)

This CBC television journalist spent a month in captivity after being abducted in a Kabul-area refugee camp.

Ms. Fung spent a month chained up before her captors suddenly surrendered her to Afghan intelligence officials. Canadian officials had been working behind the scenes for her release.

Amanda Lindhout (Somalia)

For 15 months in 2008-2009, this young Calgary journalist was in the clutches of a Somalian group.

Canadian agents are understood to have been in anarchic Somalia, and nearby it, to work at facilitating her release. A privately paid ransom is understood to have done the job instead.

Bev Giesbrecht (Pakistan)

Now feared dead, the 53-year-old disappeared in Pakistan in 2008.

The blogger and journalist had converted to Islam years earlier, figuring that might provide her some safety in her quest to interview militants. Suffering from ill health, she is rumoured to have died of natural causes as her captors held out for a ransom.

It's not clear what actions Canadian officials may have taken in hopes of saving her.

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