KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb. 17 (UPI) -- Missing American journalist Daniel Pearl might have been kidnapped because he knew enough to get his would-be kidnappers in trouble, investigators told United Press International Sunday.
"He was abducted to stop him from knowing more," said one Pakistani investigator when contacted by UPI.
Based on the information they have collected since Jan. 23, when Pearl was kidnapped from outside a restaurant in Karachi, investigators have pieced together a theory about Pearl's disappearance.
The Wall Street Journal reporter, they say, was working on links between stray operators, like the alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and al Qaida and Taliban organizations.
He also had collected some information about the alleged terrorist cells in Europe and North America, which received instructions from al Qaida and Taliban bosses in Afghanistan.
One such cell, nicknamed "Islamburg," operates in the United States and is linked to Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, a religious leader Pearl was trying to interview when kidnapped.
Since he also was probing possible links between Pakistan's military intelligence organization, ISI, and various terrorist cells operated from Afghanistan, he stayed away from Pakistani officials.
"This means, he kept his activities in Pakistan secret. So when we started looking for him, we did not know where to look for the missing reporter," said a senior Pakistani official who visited Washington last week with President Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf himself hinted at this when he told journalists at the National Press Club in Washington Pearl had created "three layers" of secrecy around him.
Pakistani and FBI investigators, now looking for Pearl in Pakistan, also were given the names of several retired ISI officials with whom the reporter had been in touch.
They say Pearl believed before Sept. 11 at least some ISI officials worked closely with al Qaida and Taliban leaders. He reportedly had interviewed some retired ISI officials about links between al Qaida and ISI, causing suspicions they also might have played a role in his abduction.
"We interrogated some retired ISI officials after Pearl's disappearance but they said they had never met the reporter," said the Pakistani official accompanying Musharraf. "We found no evidence of their involvement in Pearl's abduction."
But Western diplomatic sources in Islamabad insist Pearl had met some retired ISI officials, which upset the Pakistani establishment as well as the militants.
They say there were cells within ISI that handled people, like Shaikh Omar, the main suspect in Pearl's abduction, and his mentor, Maulana Masud Azhar. Both Omar and Azhar were active in the Indian Kashmir, where ISI was heavily involved, and had done time in Indian prisons, the sources said.
At least one report in a Pakistani newspaper -- The News -- suggested Azhar, now in a Pakistani prison, spoke with Omar on a cell phone before Omar also was arrested. The conversation, the report said, was arranged by Pakistani officials anxious to know whether Pearl was dead or alive.
There also are conflicting reports about Omar's arrest. Omar told a court in Karachi last week, when he also declared Pearl was dead, that he surrendered because police had detained his entire family. But some reports say Azhar arranged the arrest on an assurance by Pakistani officials Omar would not be extradited to the United States.
Another report in the Pakistani media said police caught Omar on Feb. 5, but his arrest was announced Feb. 13 after his interrogation ended. It is not clear whether FBI officials looking for Pearl in Pakistan also were involved in this initial interrogation or were informed after Feb. 13.
The announcement coincided with a crucial meeting in Washington between Musharraf and U.S. President George W. Bush.
Omar also has admitted kidnapping Pearl, a claim endorsed by Pakistani officials who have rejected his claim Pearl is dead.
Investigators say despite Omar's arrest, they are having problems tracing the WSJ reporter because those behind the kidnapping had made three separate cells to execute the operation.
The first cell was responsible for luring the journalist into the trap, the second to convey the group's demands to Pakistani and U.S. officials and the third to keep him in custody.
"People in one cell did not know those in others," said an investigator. "Omar, who masterminded the operation, knew most of them but has not given their names to the interrogators."
So far Pakistani police have arrested at least 16 people from the first and the second cells, but none from the third cell, sources said.
Investigators say the tremendous international publicity the case so far has received, including several personal comments from President Bush, also has scared the kidnappers.
Those who have been interrogated reportedly told police their other accomplices would first want to assess how much Pearl knew of them before releasing him.
"If he knows too much, he may never be released," one of the suspects is believed to have told the interrogators.
Meanwhile, police said Sunday they are closing in on a new suspect but warned any major breakthrough in the case still was a long way off.
Their main suspect, Omar -- the British-born, London School of Economics graduate -- told his interrogators he telephoned his accomplices on Feb. 5 and told them to release Pearl. He used the codewords: "Shift the patient to the doctor," one report said. But his accomplice, who was holding Pearl at a secret hideout, replied: "Dad has expired," a code meaning that Pearl was dead.
Police are now looking for another suspect, Mansour Hasnain, who they believe has been holding Pearl since he went missing in Karachi. In raids on Friday night, police detained his wife and child at Toba Tek Singh in Punjab. One officer said they were "very close" to arresting Hasnain himself.
Hasnain, a militant of the Harkat-al-Mujahedin group, reportedly is one of those who hijacked an Indian Airlines jet in December 1999 and forced New Delhi to release three militants -- including Omar and Azhar.
Police believe Pearl met both Omar and Hasnain after they promised him they could arrange an interview with the head of a group linked to al Qaida cells in North America and Europe. Omar told his interrogators he shaved his beard and put on dark glasses to meet Pearl in room 114 of the Akbar International Hotel in Rawalpindi.
"It was a great meeting. We ordered cold coffee and club sandwiches and had great chit chat," one Pakistani newspaper quoted Omar as telling interrogators. "We had nothing personal against Daniel."
While Omar financed and masterminded the kidnap, it was Hasnain, using the alias Imitiaz Siddiqui, who met Pearl in Karachi. Deputy Police Chief Tariq Jamil, who was sitting in his office with Pearl, heard the reporter taking telephone calls on his cell phone from a man named Siddiqui the same day he went missing.
(Reported by Anwar Iqbal in Washington with contributing reports from Shahid Iqbal in Karachi and Aamir Shah in Islamabad.)
