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Three hostages rescued

Peace activists are freed from house outside Baghdad two weeks after American was found dead

BY MOHAMAD BAZZI | Newsday Middle East Correspondent

March 24, 2006

LONDON - Without firing a shot, U.S. and British troops stormed a house on the outskirts of Baghdad yesterday and freed three Christian peace activists who were kidnapped last year.

The daring rescue came two weeks after the activists' colleague and fellow hostage, Tom Fox, was found shot to death along a railroad track. Fox, 54, was the only American among four members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams abducted in Baghdad on Nov. 26.

U.S. military officials said the three hostages - Norman Kember, 74, of Britain, and James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, both of Canada - were rescued from a "kidnapping cell" based on information obtained only three hours earlier from an Iraqi man. The man was being interrogated by U.S. officials after he was captured Wednesday night.

"They were bound, they were together, there were no kidnappers in the area," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a military spokesman, told reporters in Baghdad. He suggested the activists' rescue - and the Iraqi man's arrest - could lead to clues in finding other hostages, including American reporter Jill Carroll, who was kidnapped on Jan. 7.

Asked whether he had any new information about Carroll, Lynch replied, "None that I can discuss at this time." Later, he said, "There are other operations that continue, probably as a result of what we're finding."

The rescue of Kember, a retired physics professor from London, could provide a boost for British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose popularity has sunk to record lows in recent months. Blair has been under intense criticism for his continued support of U.S. policies in Iraq and for a campaign finance scandal that has rocked his ruling Labor Party.

Blair has been badly embarrassed by recent disclosures that several wealthy businessmen who provided millions of dollars in secret loans to his campaign were then nominated for seats in the House of Lords, the upper branch of parliament.

The prime minister remained largely silent yesterday, allowing Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to announce the news of the rescue. Straw said the operation "followed weeks and weeks of very careful work by our military and coalition personnel in Iraq."

British media reported that intelligence operatives had been chasing leads for several weeks in Sunni Muslim neighborhoods of Baghdad. British special forces units were ready to move at short notice.

In a statement released by the British Embassy in Baghdad, where he was taken after his rescue, Kember said, "It's great to be free. I'm looking forward to getting back to the U.K."

Members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams have been working in Iraq since the mid-1990s. During Saddam Hussein's regime, the group highlighted the impact of UN sanctions on the Iraqi population. After the U.S. invasion in 2003, the group began investigating the killing of Iraqi civilians and allegations of abuse against Iraqi detainees by coalition forces.

The peace activists had been seen last in a silent, 25-second video that aired March 7 on the Al-Jazeera satellite channel. A previously unknown group called the Swords of Righteousness Brigades threatened that they would be killed unless all Iraqi prisoners were released from Iraqi and U.S. prisons.