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At least three Canadians who joined Islamic State (IS; formerly known as ISIS) and other Al Qaeda-offshoot groups in Syria were directly involved in abducting and interrogating two US journalists, CBC News confirmed earlier this week.

Sources told the Canadian news outlet that the three took part in the imprisonment of Theo Curtis and Matt Schrier, who were held in captivity together between 2011 and 2013. Curtis was abducted in Antakya, Turkey in October 2012 and released last month; Schrier escaped last year. 

According to the latest CBC report, the Canadian captors allegedly forced the hostages to hand over their PINs and passwords, draining their bank accounts and then using their emails to callously write letters to the mens' families in their names. 

The report also contests a recent Canadian government statement claiming that some 130 citizens have become jihadists in the highly contested region; new data suggests the number is closer to 2-300. 

That threat was recently illustrated as two brothers from Calgary were identified as members of the Islamic State's (IS, formerly ISIS) group of foreign fighters in Syria. The two are recent converts to Islam.

The report surfaces just days after IS terrorists killed Jewish-American journalist and Israeli citizen Steve Sotloff in a brutal decapitation tape entitled "A Second Message to America." 

The tape not only vows death on another journalist - British civilian David Haines - but also threatens the US over its action against the terrorists. 

The incident has sparked a worldwide scramble to suppress terrorism in Syria and Iraq, where IS has been taking large swaths of land over the past several months and committing genocide against thousands of ethnic minorities. 

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that at least 67 journalists have been killed in Syria where Curtis was being held since the bloody conflict broke out there four years ago, leaving nearly 200,000 dead according to a recent UN report.

(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)