NEW YORK, Oct. 21 (UPI) -- U.S. officials say they now believe Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was killed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged planner of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Journal said Mohammed, believed one of Osama bin Laden's closets aides, is suspected of being the al-Qaida terror network's operations chief. He was arrested in March in Pakistan and is being held at an undisclosed location.
But the Journal reported Tuesday the Bush administration now says it has credible, corroborated information that Mohammed was "directly involved along with the men recently convicted in Pakistan" in Pearl's death.
Pearl, the Journal's South Asia bureau chief, was kidnapped Jan. 23, 2002, while reporting a terrorism story in Karachi, Pakistan. A month later, investigators learned of his death when they obtained videotape depicting his murder.
Mohammed is accused of plotting to blow up 12 U.S. airliners in the mid-1990s. He's also accused of helping to plot the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and of masterminding the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, as well as the suicide bombing of a Tunisian synagogue last year that killed 22 people.
