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International
February 6, 2002
JOURNALISTS
British-Born Militant Is Suspect in Abduction of U.S. Reporter
By DOUGLAS JEHL
(AFP)
Mariane Pearl read the newspaper in Karachi, on Wednesday, as she
waited the release of her husband, Daniel Pearl, a correspondent for
the Wall Street Journal.
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SLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 6 � The chief suspect in the disappearance of the American
journalist Daniel Pearl is a British-born leader of Jaish-e- Mohammad, a Pakistani
militant group, who was involved in the kidnapping of
four Western tourists in India in 1994, American and Pakistani authorities said today.
The suspect, Ahmed Umar Saeed Sheik, was imprisoned by India but then released in 1999
to meet the demands of the hijackers of an Indian Airlines jet. He was among three
militants freed in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the
plane had been taken, in return for the release of 155 hostages, but his movements
since then have been unclear, although he is believed to have spent most of his time
in Pakistan.
The authorities said they were not yet positive that Mr. Saeed, who is now 27 and
became a militant after abandoning studies at the London School of Economics, had been
involved in the Jan. 23 abduction of Mr. Pearl. But
a senior Pakistani police official said two suspects arrested overnight by Pakistani
police in Karachi had identified Mr. Saeed as having been a leader of the plan.
The police and officials say they believe Mr. Saeed has been going under the name of
Imtiaz Siddiqui, one of three people named on Tuesday as key suspects in the case. A
home in the city of Lahore that is believed to belo
ng to Mr. Saeed was raided early today, but the wanted man was not at home.
The involvement of a well-known Islamic militant group, rather than a criminal gang,
in the kidnapping of Mr. Pearl, while perhaps not a surprise, would mark a bold and
direct challenge to President Pervez Musharraf's pro
mised campaign to crack down on terrorism, in which hundreds of militants have been
arrested but many others have remained free.
Mr. Saeed and his Jaish-e-Mohammad group have links to another, older Islamic militant
organization, the Harkat ul-Mujahedeen, or Movement of Holy War. That group has been
on the State Department's list of terrorist organ
izations since 1997, but it was not until late last December that Jaish-e-Mohammad was
added to the list, despite the apparent links of members, including Mr. Saeed, to the
Indian kidnapping.
It has now also been banned by General Musharraf as part of the crackdown, promised
last month. But even now, it is not clear how extensively Pakistan has moved against
the militants.
The claims by the arrested men of links to Mr. Saeed are apparently being regarded by
American and Pakistani officials as tantalizing because their capture was accompanied
by the seizure of the computer believed to have b
een used to send to news organizations authentic photographs depicting Mr. Pearl in
custody.
Mr. Pearl, a 38-year-old foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal,
disappeared in the port city of Karachi on Jan. 23 after failing to return from a
meeting with a news informant. His wife, Mariane, who is six mo
nths' pregnant, was with him in Karachi at the time, and she has made repeated pleas
for his freedom.
"This is an innocent man, with an innocent wife and an unborn son," she said in an
article in the Pakistani newspaper The Nation.
A previously unknown group calling itself The National Movement for the Restoration of
Pakistani Sovereignty is the only one to have claimed to have kidnapped Mr. Pearl.
In recent days a number of Pakistani and Indian experts have pointed out similarities
between the 1994 kidnapping and last month's abduction of Mr. Pearl. In both cases,
the victims were apparently lured by their kidnappe
rs to a clandestine meeting, rather than being abducted by force.
Both may also have been part of attempts to secure the release of fellow militants. In
the 1994 kidnapping, Mr. Saeed sought to exchange the Western tourists for the freedom
of 10 jailed Islamic militants. Mr. Saeed himse
lf was then among three Islamic militants freed by India in 1999 to win the freedom of
passengers on a hijacked Indian Airlines jet.
And in the latest case, kidnappers who have issued their claims in the name of a
previously unknown group have also demanded concessions, including the release of
Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, the former Taliban ambassador to
Pakistan now being held in custody at an undisclosed location.
Mr. Saeed, born to Pakistani parents in London, studied mathematics and statistics and
was fluent in English, French, Urdu, Hindi and Pashto, Indian authorities reported at
the time of the 1994 kidnapping. He began his st
udies at the London School of Economics in 1992, but left to join in the fight for the
independence of Kashmir, the only Muslim-majority state in predominantly Hindu India.
He was arrested in 1994 after a gun battle that followed the release of one of the
hostages, an American. The other three hostages, who were British, were freed by the
police in a raid after they had been held for two wee
ks.
His activities since he was freed remain something of a mystery. Among two other
militants released by India in Afghanistan at the time was a more prominent figure,
Maulana Masood Azhar, a former Harkat ul-Mujahedeen acti
vist who later formed Jaish-e-Mohammed. Mr. Azhar returned to Pakistan to become an
outspoken champion of the militant cause, leading rallies in Karachi, but ran afoul of
Pakistani authorities who later moved to restrict
his activities.
Mr. Azhar is currently in Pakistani custody, having been arrested in December after
what officials from Pakistan and the United States have called a secret d�marche by
Washington. But little is known about Mr. Saeed, or w
hether he spent much time in Afghanistan or forged inks to militants there after being
freed.
In the last six weeks, General Musharraf has been said by Pakistani and American
officials to have detained the leaders of other groups, including Lashkar-e-Taiba,
another militant organization active in Kashmir. Altogeth
er, Pakistani and American officials say that nearly 2,000 suspected militants have
been arrested.
But the Pakistani authorities have not yet said when or how they plan to put the
militants on trial, and they have not publicly released the identities of those who
have been arrested. The issue of possible trials was rep
orted by senior Pakistani officials today to have been the subject of a high-level
meeting in Islamabad that was attended by security officials from around the country.
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