Kidnappers threaten to kill Iraq hostages in days

[Felix the Cat]

Kidnappers threaten to kill Iraq hostages in days (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-1902573,00.html)

KIDNAPPERS threatened last night to kill an elderly British peace activist and his American and Canadian colleagues by Thursday unless Iraqi and American authorities released all detainees held in Iraq. The group also demanded the immediate withdrawal of American and British troops from Iraq.

The threats came in a statement accompanying the delivery of a new video of the four hostages, among them Norman Kember, 74, the Briton, to the Arabic television channel al-Jazeera.

“It gave a deadline for those concerned until December 8 to meet the demands,” the channel reported. It gave those it called “the people concerned with abductees affairs” until next Thursday to meet its demands or it would kill the four.

The tape, broadcast late last night, showed Mr Kember along with two Canadians and an American working with the peace activist group, Christian Peacemakers, who were snatched in Baghdad last weekend. All looked frightened and pale but none of their words could be heard.

The Canadians were shown eating from plates of what appeared to be Arabic sweets. In a second clip, Mr Kember and the American were shown talking to the camera but no soundtrack was provided. The video was the second to be released by the kidnappers, who call themselves the Swords of Righteousness Brigade, a previously unknown group.

Security sources in Baghdad said the four were snatched last weekend as they left a Sunni mosque in the al-Mansour district of Baghdad known as a stronghold of followers of al-Qaeda in Iraq, the group led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Their abandoned car was later found in another area known as an al-Zarqawi stronghold, raising fears that the group holding them may be affiliates of the Jordanian.

The kidnappings broke a year-long lull following a wave of abductions of Westerners.

Security sources say that the majority of kidnappings are carried out to win ransom to raise funds for the insurgency, which led to a surge in abductions last year of citizens of countries known to pay out. Often insurgents are unaware of the nationality of hostages until after they are snatched, and often decide whether to use them for political or financial purposes only after they are in captivity. Few British or American hostages have emerged alive from the clutches of extremist Sunni groups, after those two countries’ strong public stance against ransom payment.

In the first video, broadcast on Tuesday, the group accused the four of being spies for their governments.

Christian Peacemakers rejected the charge, saying that the four were vociferous opponents of the war, and were in Iraq on a peace-building mission and to investigate human rights abuses against Iraqi detainees.

The British Government said it was still hopeful that the kidnappers would release Mr Kember and the three other hostages despite threats to kill them.

“We are investigating this latest development and we are in constant touch with Mr Kember’s family through a family liaison officer,” said a Foreign Office spokesman following the broadcast of the video.

“We are also in touch with the Iraqi authorities, and of course we are hopeful that Mr Kember and his colleagues will be released unharmed and reunited with their families.”

Mr Kember’s fellow hostages are Tom Fox, 54, James Looney, 41, and Harmed Singh Sodden, 32.

[Lenny]

The American is a Quaker (see story below). If the Iraqis who kidnapped him knew anything about Quakers they would realize that this is some of the worst publicity they could get. What a bunch of fools

-----------
Virginia Man Held Hostage In Iraq
Hostage Was Assisting Chicago-Based Christian Group

CLEAR BROOK, Va. -- A man from northern Virginia is one of four men being held hostage in Iraq.

The group calling itself "Swords of Truth" said one hostage is British, two are Canadian, and one is American.

Chicago-based aid group Christian Peacemaker Teams has identified one of the hostages as 54-year-old Tom Fox, of Clear Brook.

http://images.ibsys.com/2005/1130/5438579_240X180.jpg

The group said Fox is associated with a Quaker church in Frederick County and has two children. They said he worked as a professional grocer and at a Quaker youth camp. The group also said Fox plays the bass clarinet and the recorder.

Members of the church Fox attends said He is a kind and gentle man who is dedicated to helping the people of Iraq. He left his job in Springfield two years ago to become a trained peacemaker in Iraq.

The insurgents have accused Fox and his fellow captives of being spies, a charge that in the past has led to violent punishment.

A large crowd is expected at a Wednesday night prayer vigil at the Quaker meeting house in Clear Brook.

http://www.nbc4.com/news/5432947/detail.html

[Felix the Cat]

One of the "Canadians" also appears to be a Sikh

[The Retard]

And people think we should pull out of Iraq?

We do not negotiate with terrorist sandnigger scum!

[Felix the Cat]

Who remembers Margaret Hassan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Hassan)? It's a year since her death.

[Starr]

The tape, broadcast late last night, showed Mr Kember along with two Canadians and an American working with the peace activist group, Christian Peacemakers, who were snatched in Baghdad last weekend. All looked frightened and pale but none of their words could be heard.

Peace activists, ironic.

[Excorcism]

Fucking mongrels! They think kidnapping and killing people who mean well for their country and people will solve anything?! Again, I state, that these kidnappers are fucking mongrels!

The forces behind these kidnappings will face their maker soon enough.

[jcs]

Fucking mongrels! They think kidnapping and killing people who mean well for their country and people will solve anything?! Again, I state, that these kidnappers are fucking mongrels!

The forces behind these kidnappings will face their maker soon enough.
People die. Silly people get emotional when people unrelated to themselves die. Who cares?

[Lenny]

People die. Silly people get emotional when people unrelated to themselves die. Who cares?they are our countrymen, therefore are related to us you fool

[Starr]

Niggers, spics, child molesters, and serial killers are also our "countrymen" Also our "countrymen" are made up of those who attacked Iraq and are responsible for these things.

[jcs]

they are our countrymen, therefore are related to us you fool
Do you know these people? If not, you are only experiencing 'surrogate emotions,' some contrived sympathy for an idea of a person, of a relation. 'Countrymen' is an abstraction at best--and a completely meaningless one when it comes to America.

[jcs]

Maybe you just say who cares because you are anti-Protestant and that man was Protestant, if he was Catholic you would mourn over his death for 100 days and start 5 threads in his honor
No, I'd still not really care. I'd refrain from posting links to the decapitation videos were the people all Catholic, though. But they're not, so we'll have some comedic entertainment come Thursday. :222: :222: :222:

:p

[Vindex]

When you walk into the middle of a Warzone like Iraq what do you expect. So much for there attempts to preach the jeboo to the muslims. There "sword of truth" is about to meet a real sword. And I just do not see old jeboo lefting a finger to help them.

[The Retard]

People die. Silly people get emotional when people unrelated to themselves die. Who cares?

Listen you anti-American maggot.

You need to show some respect for these grieving families. If you can't understand why people show emotion for their fellow countrymen then maybe you don't belong here. It could be you or me in this situation, so why wouldn't we offer our support to the family?

By the way, if you're against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and your family. I cannot stress this enough!

[jcs]

Listen you anti-American maggot.
Cocksucking Jew-loving smurf bitch-dick.

You need to show some respect for these grieving families.
Why?

If you can't understand why people show emotion for their fellow countrymen then maybe you don't belong here.
The idea of 'countrymen' (and it is always just an idea, mind you...) doesn't work in a culturally vapid land in which people are too many, too spread-out, and too diverse. You have nothing in common with your countrymen, save that you're all Americans, whatever that means.

It could be you or me in this situation
So I should be motivated to feel emotion because of a fear of some unlikely possibility?
Let's take a likely possibility: that of death. I'm going to die one day. Should I thus be motivated to sympathize with those who are dying? Should my actions thus be altered toward death based upon this realization? Should I allow my future to cripple me in my present?

so why wouldn't we offer our support to the family?
Because I don't know them and don't see any reason to give them support on a forum where they're unlikely to look for support so as to make myself feel like a good, decent person.

By the way, if you're against the war in Iraq, the Bush administration will do whatever is necessary to get you. There will be severe ramifications for you and your family. I cannot stress this enough!
:rofl:

[Anarch]

And people think we should pull out of Iraq?

We do not negotiate with terrorist sandnigger scum!

Yeah, I actually do think we should pull out of Iraq. Perhaps after we raze half a dozen cities to the ground with chemical weapons, but we should still leave. Would you like to know why? Because it's not our job to give them freedom. If freedom is to be paid for in hundreds of gallons of blood let the fucking Iraqis pay for it.

And I'm not particularly sympathetic to those idiots who went in there to try and help a bunch of savages and ended up on the recieving end.

[Dionysus]

It is proof of no good deed going unpunished.

[The Retard]

Cocksucking Jew-loving smurf bitch-dick.

I do not see any reason to throw out hollow insults and defame me in front of my Semitic associates.

The idea of 'countrymen' (and it is always just an idea, mind you...) doesn't work in a culturally vapid land in which people are too many, too spread-out, and too diverse. You have nothing in common with your countrymen, save that you're all Americans, whatever that means.

This is mere defeatism on your part. The reason America lost to Vietnam was because the leftist disunited our country, and the same is happening now on a much larger scale. Such actions will have catastrophic results to the war and our economy.


Because I don't know them and don't see any reason to give them support on a forum where they're unlikely to look for support so as to make myself feel like a good, decent person.

Do a google search for "Kidnappers threaten to kill Iraq hostages in days + the phora" and this thread pops up first.

[The Retard]

Would you like to know why? Because it's not our job to give them freedom. If freedom is to be paid for in hundreds of gallons of blood let the fucking Iraqis pay for it.

And I'm not particularly sympathetic to those idiots who went in there to try and help a bunch of savages and ended up on the recieving end.

It's America's solemn duty to be policemen of the world.

[Felix the Cat]

Aid group blames U.S., U.K. for Iraq abductions (http://sympaticomsn.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20051129/aid_workers_051129)

The aid group whose four members were abducted at gunpoint in Baghdad on Saturday blames U.S. and British aggression in Iraq for the hostage-taking.

In a statement released Tuesday, Christian Peacemakers Teams said it was outraged that the four pacifists, including a pair of Canadians, are now suffering for a war they didn't create.

"We are angry because what has happened to our teammates is the result of the actions of the U.S. and U.K. governments due to the illegal attack on Iraq and the continuing occupation and oppression of its people," the Toronto- and Chicago-based organization wrote in the statement posted online.

Earlier in the day, CPT confirmed that a video aired on Arab television does indeed show its four members who were abducted over the weekend.

"We were disturbed by seeing the video and believe that repeated showing of it will endanger the lives of our friends," the group wrote in its statement.

CPT has identified the men as:


James Loney, 41. He is a community worker from Toronto, an advocate for the homeless and the leader of the team in Baghdad.
Former McGill University student Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32. His hometown isn't immediately known.
Briton Norman Kember, 74, a "lifelong pacifist" from London England.
American Tom Fox, a 54-year-old Quaker from Clearbrook, Va. with two years' experience working with CPT.


Responding to the broadcast of the hostage video on al-Jazeera television Tuesday, Prime Minister Paul Martin told reporters at a hastily-convened press conference that he has requested the "full resources" of the federal government be committed to the return of the two Canadians.

"These people are in that country for humanitarian reasons. They are there to help Iraqi citizens," Martin said in French.

Only hours earlier, al-Jazeera aired footage it said had been provided by a previously unknown group calling itself the Swords of Righteousness Brigade. A graphic of two crossed, black swords and the name of the group written in red Arabic script appear in the corner of the screen, as does a date stamp indicating it was made on Sunday.

In the video, members of the group claim the hostages -- seen sitting on the ground in front of a white wall -- are spies working undercover as Christian peace activists.

But in an interview with the Canadian Press, CPT spokesperson Rob Holmes "absolutely" denied the hostages were in Iraq to evangelize. Instead, the group insists its members are in Iraq working to protect civilians' human rights there.

Al-Jazeera said it could not verify any of the information on the tape.

A difficult decision

CPT only came forward as the group involved hours earlier on Tuesday.

"In our ongoing consultations with our team in Iraq, it was felt that the time had come to confirm that we are indeed the organization," spokesperson Robin Buyers said.

"It's been a very difficult decision."

The group was expected to provide a media briefing on the hostage-taking at a news conference Tuesday morning, but cancelled the event without explanation.

"We felt that we should take that advice and not go public," said Buyers. "But since we were outed, as it were ... we felt that we should confirm that indeed we are the organization and these are our people."

Buyers said she did not know the conditions of the hostages and did not say whether other group members in Iraq have been in contact with the hostage-takers.

As it remains unclear whether the aid workers were snatched by petty thieves or military insurgents, officials have been reluctant to disclose too many details about the abduction.

Ottawa's commitment

At a hastily convened press briefing in Ottawa late Tuesday afternoon, Prime Minister Paul Martin said there was no more urgent priority for government than the safe return of the Canadians taken hostage in Iraq.

Besides reaching out to the families of the abductees, Martin said he has instructed the Privy Council to commit the government's "full resources" to the effort.

"I can assure Canadians that there is no more urgent priority than the safe return of our citizens," Martin said, adding that he was "reaching out" to the families of the hostages.

"I have instructed the minister of foreign affairs and the clerk of the Privy Council to make certain that the full resources of the Government of Canada are made available to this end."

But terrorism expert Eric Margolis said the fate of the Canadians unfortunately largely rests in the hands of their captors.

"To my knowledge, hostages that have been released have either been done because of a tip-off, or U.S. forces have just stumbled across them. There's not much the Canadian government can do."

He continued: "If it's a criminal gang, it's better, because these criminal abductors will eventually contact the authorities, whoever they may be ... and then ask for money. So there's some chance of getting them out."

Former soldier Scott Taylor, the editor-in-chief of Esprit de Corps agrees, saying there is speculation that the abductors are "some freelance criminal elements that are trying to make a buck out of this."

"There's no demand at the moment on the table that can't be met ... so that's probably a good sign," Taylor said, appearing on CTV's Canada AM.

"But that means that there is ground there ...to negotiate perhaps a ransom with these kidnappers and that's where they get this grey area between what constitutes a kidnapper who is simply an opportunist in a lawless environment and a terrorist who is out to make some sort of political gain in that country."

Christian Peacemakers Team has been in Iraq since October, 2002, before the invasion by the U.S.-led coalition. The organization does not advocate the use of force to save its members' lives, should they be kidnapped or taken hostage.

Despite their charitable intentions, Margolis said these Christian missionaries are particular targets because, "in the Muslim world, they are generally regarded as agents of Western imperialism or spies ... and at best as dangerous troublemakers who are trying to upset the social balance and the customs of the country."

A "Statement of Conviction" released by the Peacemakers branch in Iraq says that team members "are aware of the many risks both Iraqis and internationals currently face," and affirmed that the risks did not outweigh their purpose in remaining.

In the statement, the group expresses the hope that "in loving both friends and enemies and by intervening non-violently to aid those who are systematically oppressed, we can contribute in some small way to transforming this volatile situation."

German woman missing in Iraq

Photos also surfaced on Tuesday of another westerner kidnapped in Iraq.

Germany's ARD television reported that pictures of German national Susanne Osthoff were taken from a video in which her captors demanded that Germany stop any dealings with Iraq's government.

The photos show the blindfolded Osthoff being led away by armed captors. Osthoff, who her mother revealed is an archeologist working for a German aid organization, has been missing along with her driver since Friday. "According to current information, we have to assume it is a kidnapping,'' German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in Berlin.

Six Iranian pilgrims, meanwhile, were abducted by gunmen north of Baghdad on Tuesday morning. The pilgrims were grabbed near Balad, 80 km north of Baghdad, but it wasn't clear if the six were going to or coming from Samarra -- the central city that houses a shrine to two Shiite saints.

[jcs]

This is mere defeatism on your part. The reason America lost to Vietnam was because the leftist disunited our country, and the same is happening now on a much larger scale. Such actions will have catastrophic results to the war and our economy.
This isn't defeatism at all. What I wrote has nothing to do with supporting or condemning the war; it has everything to do with silly people such as yourself having false emotions for those whom they have never met.
And I hope the economy dies.

[Starr]

The aid group whose four members were abducted at gunpoint in Baghdad on Saturday blames U.S. and British aggression in Iraq for the hostage-taking.

In a statement released Tuesday, Christian Peacemakers Teams said it was outraged that the four pacifists, including a pair of Canadians, are now suffering for a war they didn't create.

They are somewhat right, but the other part of it is if they were not so worried about "oppression" and the other things they are crying about, they would not have been there "suffering in a war they did not create":rolleyes:

[The Retard]

This isn't defeatism at all. What I wrote has nothing to do with supporting or condemning the war; it has everything to do with silly people such as yourself having false emotions for those whom they have never met.
And I hope the economy dies.

Then you're an uncompassionate nihilist that is selfish in all respects. :nono:

[jcs]

Then you're an uncompassionate nihilist that is selfish in all respects.
Quit being a smurf bitch-dick and explain to me how one can feel compassion for people whom one has never met on any real level.

[Felix the Cat]

They are somewhat right, but the other part of it is if they were not so worried about "oppression" and the other things they are crying about, they would not have been there "suffering in a war they did not create":rolleyes:
http://www.oleswanson.com/images/office/mistakes.jpg

[The Retard]

Quit being a smurf bitch-dick and explain to me how one can feel compassion for people whom one has never met on any real level.

You seem to be morally inept. It's completely natural for humans to feel compassion for someone they've never encountered. Maybe you should ask yourself why you don't feel compassion for them. You're clearly from a generation that has been desensitised by Hollywood.

[Billy Score]

Christians and pacifists are two things the world can do without. I toast to the iraqi kidnappers.

[jcs]

You seem to be morally inept. It's completely natural for humans to feel compassion for someone they've never encountered. Maybe you should ask yourself why you don't feel compassion for them. You're clearly from a generation that has been desensitised by Hollywood.
Quit being shallow and feeling these oh-so-shallow feelings. If you cannot differentiate between compassion felt for those whom one has never met and compassion for one's loved ones, you are too humane toward the unfamiliar and too inhumane toward those you know. It's not a matter of degree separating these feelings, but a matter of quality.
You are feeling feelings for far-away people-ideas, not for real humans at all. One cannot love that which is unknown to oneself. You're lying to yourself with this compassion.

[Dances with Wolves]

It's America's solemn duty to be policemen of the world.

Hey Homer, what would you do if someone invaded the county you live in (yes I said county, not country) and started imposing their way of life on you? What if it were mudslums imposing sharia on you?

You are the reason Americans are dying in some mud country that nobody had an issue with except jews.

Stupid do-gooders know the risk. They took it. They may end up paying the price. Instead of going into country that is being raped by the Great Satan and acting like one cares, they should be in DC, taking out targets.

But they'll nevah learn.

[Felix the Cat]

bump

Any news on these folks?

[Count Eustace II]

America ignored the entire fucking world and attacked a country 10,000 miles away who were no threat to ANYONE (not even to America's precious pet's in Israel) but now I'm supposed to fucking care about the Empire's subjects getting killed Iraq???

I don't think so.

[Felix the Cat]

Body of US hostage found dead in Iraq (http://www.smh.com.au/news/World/Body-of-US-hostage-found-dead-in-Iraq/2006/03/12/1142098332419.html)

The body of a kidnapped American peace activist was found bound and shot in Baghdad, police said on Saturday, as US President George W Bush vowed to do everything possible to avert a civil war.

Sunni Arab and Shi'ite political leaders, struggling to break a deadlock over the formation of a national unity government, held coalition talks for the first time since the bombing of an important Shi'ite mosque set off a wave of sectarian violence.

Reprisal killings, which cost hundreds of lives and plunged Iraq into its worst crisis since US-led forces invaded three years ago, prompted Sunni parties to boycott negotiations.

Police said Tom Fox, kidnapped in November with three colleagues by a group calling itself the Swords of Truth, was discovered on Thursday with his hands tied and a single gunshot wound to the head at a garbage dump in western Baghdad.

Fox, who had been in Iraq to campaign against the "dehumanisation" of the US occupation, appeared to have been beaten with electric cables before his death, according to a policeman who found the body beside a railway line.

The kidnappers - one of many armed groups that have seized more than 200 foreigners and thousands of Iraqis since the US-led invasion - had threatened to kill the four, members of the Christian Peacemaker Teams, unless US forces and the Iraqi authorities freed all prisoners in their custody.

A US embassy spokeswoman said Fox's body was on its way back to the United States. She had no comment on his death.

Fears about Fox's fate were raised earlier this week when Arabic television station Al Jazeera aired a video dated February 28 showing only fellow kidnapped activists Briton Norman Kember and Canadians James Loney and Harmeet Sooden.

There was no word on the fate of the three, who looked well in the video and did not appear distressed.

Three years after US-led forces invaded Iraq to remove Saddam Hussein, sectarian violence sparked by the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra has raised the spectre of civil war, denting Americans' hopes for a troop withdrawal.

Iraq's divided political leaders are deadlocked over a new prime minister that has stalled the formation of a US-sponsored national unity government of Shi'ites, Sunnis and Kurds, seen by Washington as essential to calm tensions.

One day after President Jalal Talabani postponed the first session of parliament until March 19 to give parties more time to agree on key posts, leaders from the ruling Shi'ite Alliance and the Iraqi Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni Arab political grouping, held substantive talks to try to end the impasse.

The Alliance, the largest bloc in parliament, has said it will not succumb to pressure from Kurds and Sunnis to drop its choice of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, who critics say has failed to bring stability or prosperity.

After the mosque attack, which led to reprisals against minority Sunnis, the Front said it would not return to coalition talks until a list of 10 conditions were met. Talabani said on Friday most conditions had been met.

Hit by low approval ratings before mid-term elections in November, Bush has planned a series of speeches starting on Monday to shore up American support for his Iraq policy.

Asked what he planned to do if civil war broke out in Iraq, Bush told a national newspaper group on Friday: "Step one is to make sure (to) do everything we can that there not be one."

American anti-war sentiment has increased as US casualties have mounted - there have been more than 2,300 US military deaths in Iraq since the invasion.

Fox, a father of two, had expressed concern in an article written the day before his abduction about the dehumanisation of Iraqis amid raging insurgency and US responses that he said often claimed innocent lives.

"Dehumanisation seems to be the operative means of relating to each other," he wrote. "US forces in their quest to hunt down and kill 'terrorists' are...not only killing terrorists, but also killing innocent Iraqis."

US officials said they were still working to free American journalist Jill Carroll, kidnapped in Baghdad on January 7, but had no new information on her fate. Her kidnappers had threatened to kill her by February 26 unless US forces released women detainees.

Fifty-five foreign hostages are known to have been killed by their captors. Two Germans and two Kenyans are among those still being held.

Gunmen killed a senior editor for Iraqi state television and his driver in Baghdad on Saturday. Amjad Hameed was the second Iraqi journalist to be killed in a week.

[WFHermans]

Torturing and killing is the modus operandi of the Mossad and the US Army.
Israel and the USA are the only countries in the world where torture and execution without trial are legal.

[WFHermans]

The three remaining hostages, all British, have been found alive, resued by a "special forces" units. Strangely enough none of the "kidnappers" was found.

Very probably they were held by "allied" forces. The Busheviks ordered the American to be tortured to death, but the Blairites didn't allow that to happen to the three Britons. Britons still have some decency left, compared to the judeo-yankees.

[Felix the Cat]

Kember returning to UK amid row (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4841480.stm)

Freed British hostage Norman Kember is returning home - to a row over whether he thanked the soldiers who saved him.

Peace campaigner Mr Kember, 74, of Pinner, London, was kidnapped in Iraq last November. He and two Canadian hostages were rescued on Thursday.

Head of the British Army, Gen Sir Mike Jackson, said he was "saddened" there did not seem to be any gratitude.

Christian Peacemaker Teams, the group all three men were campaigning for, insisted it had thanked the soldiers.

And Pat Kember, the campaigner's wife, said: "I am overjoyed that Norman is free to come home and I am very grateful for all those who have helped secure his release."

Mr Kember spent the night in Kuwait, and is due to land at Heathrow Airport in London later.

'Bewildered'

Sir Mike told Channel 4 News on Friday: "I'm slightly saddened that there doesn't seem to be a note of gratitude for the soldiers who risked their lives to save those lives.

"I hope he has and I've missed it."

But Jonathan Bartley, a UK spokesman for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), told the BBC he was "deeply surprised" and "bewildered" that the soldiers believed they had not been thanked.

"It is a matter of public record and has been widely reported that Christian Peacemakers have expressed great gratitude to the soldiers who rescued him."

Gratitude

The CPT released a statement on Thursday after the rescue of Mr Kember, James Loney, 41, and Harmeet Singh Sooden, 32, thanking the troops.

It said: "We are grateful to the soldiers who risked their lives to free Jim, Norman and Harmeet.

"As peacemakers who hold firm to our commitment to non-violence, we are also deeply grateful that they fired no shots to free our colleagues."

Jan Benvie, also from CPT, told BBC News she intends to go to Iraq in July.

She said she did not accept her presence should mean an extra responsibility for the security forces.

Mr Kember said he had enjoyed a shave, a bath and a "good English breakfast" since returning to freedom.

The two Canadians were due to leave Iraq on Saturday.

They were due to arrive in Dubai at 1730 local time before making their way back to Canada, CPT said.

'Courage'

The rescue followed a weeks-long operation led by British troops and involving US and Canadian special forces, and information gleaned from two detainees just three hours before the rescue.

US citizen Tom Fox, kidnapped at the same time on 26 November in Baghdad, was found shot dead earlier this month.

His three colleagues did not find out he was dead until after their release, according to CPT, which also said the men had not been bound during captivity.

They were not given much food but Mr Kember had received medicine he needed.

Prime Minister Tony Blair, attending an EU summit in Brussels, paid tribute to the "extraordinary courage and dedication" of the British, American, Iraqi and Canadian forces involved in the rescue operation.

Foreign Secretary Jack Straw urged people planning to undertake humanitarian work in Iraq to think again, saying there was a real risk of being kidnapped or killed.

Between 10 and 40 Iraqis are kidnapped every day - often children snatched on their way to school and held for a ransom of between £3,000 and £30,000.

[WFHermans]

Why should the hostage thank the British soldiers? It's because of them that he was kidnapped anyway.