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TORONTO — There was no time to waste when three young women went missing last July. The teens had already left Toronto for Cairo, where they would be catching a connecting flight to Istanbul. Their parents feared they were headed for Syria.

The RCMP national security officer assigned to the case worked on it through the night. He reached the RCMP liaison officer in Cairo, who convinced his Egyptian police contacts to track down and intercept the women at the airport.

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“Another hour or so, a couple of hours, they would have been gone because the fixer was already there (at Istanbul airport) to meet them,” said RCMP Supt. Doug Best, who heads the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team in Ontario.

Nine months after those harrowing few days, the RCMP discussed its role in the case for the first time this week after federal prosecutors decided not to lay criminal charges against the teenagers — a 15-year-old and two sisters, aged 18 and 19.