http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_1-10-2003_pg7_5
Daily Times, Pakistan
Wednesday, October 01, 2003
Pearl's parents react to Musharraf remarks
by Khalid Hasan
WASHINGTON: The parents of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl
have reacted angrily to President General Pervez Musharraf's
suggestion that their son died because he was getting too close to
Islamic extremists.
According to a report in Canada's premier daily the Globe and Mail,
the family said that instead of blaming the victim, Gen Musharraf
needs to answer tough questions about possible links between the
killers and Pakistani intelligence. Musharraf's observation about
Pearl, which he has made on more than one earlier occasion, came in
the course of a special session with the foreign affairs committee of
the Canadian parliament during his official visit to that country. Gen
Musharraf said Pearl's death was a sad case but it came about because
"he kept moving down inside into this world of extremism himself. And,
unfortunately, then, whatever happened happened." Pearl's parents were
approached by the Canadian newspaper at their home in California. They
denounced the suggestion that their son somehow shared responsibility
for his own death.
Daniel's father, Judea Pearl, said Musharraf was obviously "trying to
exonerate himself and the people he works with - the ISI". His mother,
Ruth Pearl, said Gen Musharraf seemed to be "blaming the victim" for
what happened, when her son was simply doing his job as a journalist.
Four militants have been tried and convicted in the Pearl murder case.
================================================================================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1860009.stm
BBC News
Thursday, 7 March, 2002, 16:46 GMT
Musharraf says Pearl 'too intrusive'
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says that the murdered US
journalist Daniel Pearl was "over-intrusive" in his pursuit of a
story.
General Musharraf said in Islamabad that the murder was unfortunate,
but journalists needed to be aware of the risks they face and act
accordingly.
Speaking at a conference, he added that the Pakistani authorities
remained committed to investigating Mr Pearl's killing.
He said a decision would be made soon on whether the chief suspect,
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, known as Sheikh Omar, would be tried for Mr
Pearl's murder or extradited to the United States.
Mr Pearl, who worked for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in
January. His death was confirmed last month.
Legal representation
President Musharraf made no direct reference to the investigation that
Mr Pearl was conducting into the involvement of Islamic militants in
acts of terrorism in the United States.
But the president said the reporter had become over-involved in the
story, which he said he should not have been.
He said the government will only decide on whether or not to extradite
Sheikh Omer once the police have completed their investigations into
the murder.
His comments followed a decision by Karachi magistrates to allow the
British-born militant to hire a lawyer before he is formally charged.
Senior Superintendent of Police Manzoor Mughal told the AFP news
agency that Sheikh Omar had received permission to contact his family
to organise legal representation.
The suspect appeared in court on Wednesday, when he was identified by
a taxi driver, who said he had dropped Mr Pearl at a restaurant, where
he saw Sheikh Omar greet the journalist.
The driver said he then saw Sheikh Omar drive Mr Pearl away.
A video recording showing the death of the journalist was sent to the
US Consulate in Karachi about a month later.
Cross-examining
Three other men are also in custody on charges of e-mailing
photographs of Mr Pearl on Sheikh Omar's orders soon after the
journalist's abduction.
A lawyer working for them, Khwaja Naveed, said he expected Sheikh
Omar's lawyer - once he is appointed - to be able to cross-examine the
taxi driver.
The driver's statement will be formally recorded at the court on
Saturday.
At his first appearance in court, Sheikh Omar said he was behind the
kidnapping, but he retracted the statement at a later hearing.
He is expected to face murder charges when his period in police
custody expires on 12 March.
The United States has asked for Sheikh Omar's extradition in
connection with the kidnapping of another American in the 1990s.
================================================================================
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2989053.stm
BBC News
Wednesday, 30 April, 2003, 14:55 GMT 15:55 UK
Pearl 'killed over secrets'
France's leading philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, says that American
journalist Daniel Pearl, who was kidnapped and murdered in Pakistan
last year was killed because he knew too much.
In an interview with the BBC, Mr Levy said Mr Pearl had uncovered
dangerous secrets about the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence
service with Islamic extremists.
He also claims that British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed
Sheikh, convicted of killing Mr Pearl was in fact a double agent
working for Pakistan's intelligence service, Inter Services
Intelligence (ISI).
Mr Levy, who recently returned from investigating the murder in
Pakistan, was French President Jacques Chirac's special envoy to
Afghanistan.
Mr Levy said that Mr Pearl was "kidnapped for one reason and he was
killed for another".
"He was kidnapped obviously because he was American, Jewish and a
journalist - especially because he was American and Jewish in a
country, in an area of the world where it is a crime to be Jewish and
American."
"To be American and Jewish in Pakistan is not an identity it is a sin
- it is a crime - this is why he kidnapped," Mr Levy said.
Nuclear question
Mr Levy says once in the hands of his captors, in the course of his
conversations with them, Pearl's abductors realised "that he knew too
much", that he was in possession of information too sensitive for him
to ever be released.
Mr Levy said the information took two forms - firstly about Pakistan's
nuclear capabilities:
"Everyone knows that Pakistan is a nuclear power but Daniel discovered
that the nuclear weapons were less controlled than Mr Musharraf
pretends and less under control than the secret services of occidental
powers believe."
Secondly, according to Mr Levy, Pearl had uncovered information about
a shadowy Muslim leader known as Gillani.
"He was on the point of discovering the identity, background, roots
and area of influence of a very strange man who is called Gillani," Mr
Levy said.
"He is the chief of a Muslim sect which has one foot in Pakistan and
one foot in America and he happens to be one of the masters of Bin
Laden - one of the gurus of Bin Laden," Mr Levy added.
Mr Levy also claimed to have uncovered information about Omar Sheikh,
Pearl's killer, whom he claims is not only connected to al-Qaeda, but
to ISI too.
"What I discovered is that he is not simply a young guy deciding to
kill a Jew. It was a planned crime, organised and done to a cold
strategy."
"This British man Omar Sheikh is linked to ISI the intelligence
service of Pakistan, which means partly to the state of Pakistan and
secondly to al-Qaeda," Mr Levy said.
"I think Omar Sheikh was an agent of al-Qaeda, close to Bin Laden, and
an agent of ISI."
================================================================================
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,942147,00.html
The Guardian, UK
Thursday April 24, 2003
Pearl killed 'for finding terror links'
Paul Webster, Paris
The American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and murdered in
Pakistan because he uncovered links between the British terrorist
Richard Reid and the Pakistani secret service, according to an
investigation by the French philosopher and author Bernard-Henri Lévy.
Lévy's book Who Killed Daniel Pearl? traces the Wall Street Journal
correspondent's last investigation after he was persuaded to go to
Pakistan by a London-born double agent, Omar Saeed Sheikh.
Sheikh has since been sentenced to death in Pakistan for overseeing
the murder, in which the reporter's body was cut into 10 pieces.
Lévy spent several weeks in Pakistan and described it as "the most
delinquent of delinquent nations". He said Muslims such as Reid who
were linked to al-Qaida were being manipulated by "the most violent
and most anti-American faction" inside the Pakistani intelligence
service.
Sheikh, a London School of Economics graduate, reportedly invited
Pearl, who was then in India, to visit him in Pakistan as part of an
inquiry into the background of Reid.
Reid is now in prison in the US after trying to blow up a flight from
Paris to Miami.
Lévy said "an odour of the apocalypse" floated over cities in Pakistan
where there was a struggle between moderate and radical Muslims
recruited by the intelligence service. He accused Pakistani extremists
of transferring nuclear secrets to Iran and helping North Korea to
develop the atomic bomb.
Claiming that Pakistan was the real key to all Islamic-led
international terrorism, he said that the US had solved only 1% of the
problem by deposing Saddam Hussein.
================================================================================
Los Angeles Times
March 31, 2002
Musharraf's Faustian Bargain
By MANSOOR IJAZ
[Mansoor Ijaz, an American of Pakistani origin, is a member of the
Council on Foreign Relations]
NEW YORK -- Last week, Pakistan's reform-minded dictator, Gen. Pervez
Musharraf, rolled out plans to directly ask the people of Pakistan to
extend his stay in the President's House five years before October
parliamentary elections are held. He did so in fear that the country's
established political parties will find him an untenable leader after
the fall vote. It was a disturbing echo: In 1984, Pakistan's last
military ruler, Gen. Zia ul-Haq, called for a similar vote to
legitimize his power grab before holding elections in which political
parties were prohibited from participating. Musharraf also barred
Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's two most notable--and
corrupt--political leaders, from running in the fall elections to
choose the next prime minister.
On the surface, these moves by the man who many in Pakistan consider
the country's last and best hope for stability and respectability fall
well within Pakistanis' tolerance for bad governance. Musharraf, after
all, is widely perceived, in Pakistan as well as overseas, as
reversing dangerous trends set in motion by Zia, who curried favor
with religious extremists to dilute the power of the country's
political parties. But on the same day that Americans and foreigners
were attacked as they prayed at a church in Islamabad, Musharraf
released from house arrest religious extremists he had cracked down on
in his landmark January anti-terrorism speech. As worrisome, the
decision revealed the hidden role that Pakistan's powerful
Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) continues to play in domestic
politics and provided further evidence of why the agency needs to be
overhauled thoroughly if Pakistan is to become a more viable state.
The decision to release the mullahs appeared to be part of a larger
strategy to appease hard-line Islamist elements, whose followers
constitute an important and potentially large voter bloc in the
proposed May referendum. An alarmingly low voter turnout in last
year's local district elections, whose candidates were vetted by
Pakistani intelligence, probably forced Musharraf's political
operatives to settle on the referendum option as the best way to
legitimize the general's stay in power beyond the October vote.
The need to call for a referendum organized by ISI political
operatives in which Musharraf is the sole choice suggests just how
weak the general's internal grip on power may be: Rather than achieve
his stated goal of continuity by retaining the presidency through a
majority vote of the newly elected national assembly this fall,
Musharraf seems prepared to opt instead for the lesser--indeed,
questionable--legitimacy bestowed on him by an ISI-run referendum.
With the war on terrorism bogging down in Pakistan's semi-autonomous
northwestern tribal areas and religious extremists regrouping,
Musharraf's global travels to wrest economic concessions from U.S.
allies is not keeping his friends where he needs them most--at army
general headquarters in Rawalpindi and on Pennsylvania Avenue in
Washington. During the internal debate over whether or not to hold a
referendum, Musharraf's fellow army lieutenants are said to have
questioned the Pakistani leader about the value of his being both
president and army chief. The implication was that Musharraf had to
choose one or the other.
Therein lies Musharraf's dilemma. Without command over military
personnel and assets, Musharraf's powers as a self-anointed president
who lacks a broad public mandate would not be of much use to U.S.
military planners and the war on terrorism. On the other hand, a
successful referendum vote turning on the support of ISI-backed
religious fanatics desperate for a way back into Islamabad's power
circles would send Washington an equally troubling message--the
extremists may be back.
It wouldn't be the first time. By October 1990, then-ISI chief and
Islamic fundamentalist Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul had cobbled together a
coalition of anti-Bhutto political parties, called the Islamic
Democratic Alliance, to block her reelection. Sharif, the victor of
the ISI-rigged election, morphed into an Islamist sympathizer to
maintain his gravitas with the intelligence community.
At a time when clarity and composure are needed in Islamabad,
Pakistan's military-intelligence complex has exhibited remarkably
conflicting agendas for the country's future. Pakistan remains a
breeding ground for rogue intelligence operatives intent on executing
a jihadi agenda of disrupting Pakistan and its neighbors. Reformed at
the top though it may be, the ISI remains a deeply politicized
institution full of radical Islamists at the middle-management level.
It spies on Pakistani citizens who aspire to power, and crafts and
finances radical Islamic policies abroad.
When its agenda is served, the ISI targets foreigners at home as well.
That Sunday attack on churchgoers in broad daylight, in which its
perpetrators got away without so much as a police siren going off
inside Islamabad's diplomatic enclave--heavily guarded by elite police
squads--may prove that.
In not owning up to the serious management problem created by the deep
divide between reformists and extremists inside the ISI, Musharraf is
fueling the duality--and duplicity--of Islamabad's anti-terrorism
policies. By letting Pakistan's mullahs and fundamentalists back up
for air, he has made himself an easier target of their wrath for
signing up Pakistan in the U.S. war on terrorism. The religious
fanatics may be quiet now, and they may secure Musharraf's short-term
future. But the revenge they seek for Musharraf's secularism will
surely come, and Pakistan as a state will be the ultimate casualty.
Rather than stumping for extremist votes, Musharraf needs to end the
ISI's dubious mandate by dismantling the heart of its Islamist
operations. He needs to reassign its national-security
responsibilities to the more secular military intelligence directorate
within the army, the same group on which U.S. military forces have
relied since Sept. 11. He needs to reallocate ISI's resources to the
recruitment, training and deployment of secular anti-terrorism squads
throughout Pakistan.
And Musharraf should stop playing electoral games with his people.
Pakistan's chief military man should stay out of politics and
concentrate on destroying terrorists. To do otherwise is to set the
stage for his own self-destruction, and for America's withdrawal from
the region once again.
================================================================================
Economist, UK
Feb 28th 2002
The American journalist was killed for revenge
THE Pakistani authorities, including the president, General Pervez
Musharraf, were reasonably sure that Daniel Pearl would be freed by
his kidnappers. Along with the rest of the world, they learnt of the
American journalist's beheading only when a taped film of the grisly
act was delivered to the American consulate in Karachi on February
22nd. How did they get it so wrong?
The kidnappers belong to a group called Jaish-e-Muhammad, whose
leader, Maulana Masoud Azhar, was detained by Pakistan in January
after the United States had put pressure on Pakistan to crack down on
militant activity in the Indian part of disputed Kashmir. Ahmad Omar
Saeed Sheikh, a British-born member of the group, is also in custody
accused of being involved in the kidnapping of Mr Pearl. Until
recently both men were free to rent or recruit supporters to fight in
Indian Kashmir, with a nod from Pakistan's ubiquitous intelligence
agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI).
Then September 11th happened. The Americans stepped up demands that Mr
Sheikh be extradited on terror charges, in connection with the
kidnapping of an American in India. Mr Sheikh immediately went
underground, probably on ISI advice. Extraditing him might have led to
embarrassing disclosures of ISI links with his associates, among them
possibly members of al-Qaeda. In January, the United States declared
Jaish-e-Muhammad a terrorist outfit and demanded action against it.
When General Musharraf complied with the arrest of its leader,
activists in the group, including Mr Sheikh, sought revenge by
kidnapping Mr Pearl and executing him.
Insiders say the government's optimism that Mr Pearl had been kept
alive was based on the hope that Mr Sheikh would secretly co-operate
with his former ISI handlers and save the situation for Pakistan. That
he did not is a measure of how much America and Americans are hated by
the religious extremists in Pakistan who were thrashed by the United
States in Afghanistan and betrayed by the Pakistani government at
home. Mr Sheikh gave himself up only when the authorities kidnapped
his wife and close family members.
General Musharraf has vowed to "liquidate" all the
murderers of Mr Pearl. This may not be easy. A fundamentalist backlash
is developing against Pakistan's new pro-western stance. Since the
crackdown on religious extremists began in January, many people have
died in sectarian terrorism in Karachi. On February 26th, ten people
from the minority Shia community were shot in a mosque in Rawalpindi.
The fight between the extremists and the state that spawned them may
have only just begun.
================================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/23/international/asia/23PEAR.html
New York Times
January 23, 2003
Suspect Describes Ordeal of Slain Reporter
By DAVID ROHDE
KARACHI, Pakistan - The nursery where they killed him, one year on, is
oddly peaceful. Lush mango, palm and pomegranate trees are in bloom,
their thick, green leaves whispering in a gentle breeze.
The cinder-block storehouse where he was executed is empty, save for
some flower pots, a cot and crumpled packs of cigarettes strewn across
the floor. The 10-foot by 15-foot main room still has a metal door and
metal shutters that can be padlocked. Sounds of life reach the room:
birds chirping and cars driving past to a nearby religious school run
by Al Rashid Trust, an organization the United States accuses of
financing terrorist groups.
Twelve months after Daniel Pearl, a Wall Street Journal correspondent,
was abducted, and then murdered in this nursery, which is viewable
from the school's upper floors, the hard-line school and hundreds like
it in Pakistan remain open.
A sense of unfinished business lingers over the case, and over
Pakistan itself, as new details emerge. The Pakistani ringleaders who
kidnapped Mr. Pearl have been convicted or are in custody, but three
men, suspected of being Al Qaeda members, who are believed to have
killed him are still at large. Pakistanis express shame over the
killing, but some still believe Mr. Pearl was an American or Israeli
spy.
Questions persist about the seriousness of the efforts of some
elements of Pakistan's powerful intelligence service to find Mr.
Pearl, as well as the seriousness of the Pakistani military's effort
to crack down on militancy. In December, the leader of the group whose
members planned the kidnapping, Jaish-e-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad,
was released from government detention.
An Islamic militant arrested in police sweeps last May has provided
new information about Mr. Pearl's abduction and execution, according
to Pakistani and Western officials. The man, identified as Fazal
Karim, who is suspected of being a co-conspirator in the abduction,
told the police he had worked as a night watchman at the nursery.
Just after 7 p.m. on Jan. 23, 2002, Mr. Pearl got into a car outside
the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi thinking he was on his way
to interview a reclusive Islamic leader who had possible ties to
Richard C. Reid, the Qaeda recruit suspected of trying to blow up a
trans-Atlantic jetliner with explosives in his shoes. In truth, Mr.
Pearl had been lured into a trap by Ahmed Omar Sheikh, a British-born
militant.
He was driven around Karachi for several hours that night, at one
point changing vehicles, Mr. Karim, the watchman, told the police.
Throughout the night, Mr. Pearl appeared calm, Mr. Karim said. It is
not clear what Mr. Pearl saw, but during the final stretch of the ride
his captors turned off a main highway heading north and drove toward
the Gulshan-e-Maymar housing development on the outskirts of Karachi,
which resembles an American suburban subdivision.
Little about the area would provoke alarm. At one entrance there are
signs for the "elite school." At the other are signs for the "Pakistan
Institute of Technology" and the "Dream World Fantasy Resort."
The captors took Mr. Pearl down a dirt road to a less-developed area
nearby, stopping at the nursery. It sits in a vast field, surrounded
by houses and buildings. The religious school is 500 yards in one
direction. A large two-story luxury home is 500 yards away in another.
During his first week of captivity, Mr. Pearl tried to escape during a
trip to the outhouse, Mr. Karim told the police. In the compound, it
is easy to see why. The mud-brick fence that surrounds the nursery is
only five feet tall and houses and apartment buildings can be seen in
the distance.
Mr. Karim told the police Mr. Pearl's captors "roughed him up" as Mr.
Pearl said he was "sorry," according to a Western official's account.
Mr. Karim also told the police that Mr. Pearl was shot in the leg, but
the Western official said an autopsy found no leg wound.
On the sixth day of Mr. Pearl's captivity, three men Mr. Karim
described as Arabs from Yemen arrived. "The Arabs came prepared," said
the Western official. "They had a satchel, a drop cloth and assorted
knives."
One spoke to Mr. Pearl in a language the watchman did not understand
and the journalist's face "sort of lit up," the Western official said.
"Danny seemed to get some sort of encouragement that he was near
release."
Mr. Pearl was then videotaped saying: "My father is Jewish. My mother
is Jewish. I am a Jew." and reading a statement criticizing the United
States. "Then they put this blindfold over his head and started the
execution," the Western official said.
Afterward, the Arabs ordered Mr. Karim, who claimed he was "revolted"
by the killing, and the other guards to cut Mr. Pearl's body into
pieces, the Western official said. The Arabs then left, leaving the
Pakistanis to bury Mr. Pearl.
The journalist's body was buried in a shallow grave on the edge of the
compound, near a bamboo trellis with grape vines. They placed his body
parts back together and buried him face down, the Western official
said. "It was very puzzling," the official said. "It was almost as if
they were trying to set things right."
Pakistani officials will not comment on the new version of events or
even confirm that Mr. Karim and other militants are in their custody.
They are waiting until the completion of the appeal filed by Mr.
Sheikh, who was convicted in July and sentenced to death for Mr.
Pearl's kidnapping and murder. That process is expected to take
months.
Mr. Karim and other militants arrested this spring were members of
Lashkar-e-Jangvi, a militant Sunni Muslim group accused of murdering
scores of Shiite Muslim doctors, police officers and businessmen. An
alliance of militant groups, aided by Al Qaeda, appears to have killed
Mr. Pearl and carried out bomb attacks on the American Consulate and a
group of French engineers, according to Pakistani law enforcement
officials.
The Pakistani police have made enormous headway in some areas. The
leadership of Lashkar-e-Jangvi has been virtually destroyed in a
series of arrests, shootings and an accidental explosion in a
bomb-making factory, the Western official said. Sectarian killings and
violence in Karachi are down. But Saud Memon, a wealthy Pakistani with
ties to Al Qaeda who owns the nursery, remains at large, along with
dozens of Qaeda members believed to be hiding in the country with the
help of local militants.
Mr. Pearl's father, Judea, is organizing a worldwide memorial service
for Mr. Pearl on Feb. 21, the date his death was confirmed.
"We ask that each synagogue that plans to conduct a memorial service
invites a local church or a mosque to participate," Dr. Pearl said in
a statement. "And that the service includes a statement condemning the
hatred that killed Danny."
================================================================================
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20030111-11567148.htm
The Washington Times
January 11, 2003
Pakistani extremists lash out
By Paul Haven
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - It was one of the most enduring
images of 2002 - a photograph of Daniel Pearl, a gun pointed at
his head, just days after he was kidnapped off the streets of
Pakistan's southern port city of Karachi.
The January abduction and beheading of the Wall Street Journal
reporter was the first blow in a year of unprecedented violence
against foreigners and Pakistani Christians, and many fear a further
backlash if the United States goes ahead with an attack on Iraq.
In a first glimpse on Jan. 3, religious hard-liners staged loud
but peaceful demonstrations, chanting "Down with America," and "Long
Live Saddam Hussein." Crowds ranged in number from 7,000 in Peshawar,
a stronghold of pro-Afghan sentiment, to 400 in Islamabad, the
capital.
Retired Gen. Talat Masood, a security analyst, said he expects
reaction to an attack on Iraq to be much worse than during the 1991
Gulf war.
"Polarization is much greater and anti-Americanism is much more
crystallized," he said. "The general impression here is that this is
part of an attempt to dominate the Muslim world. Iraq may be first,
but Iran and then Pakistan may be next."
Gen. Masood said an Iraq war could lead to more violence against
foreigners here. "One can't rule that out," he said.
Others note that the Gulf war protests were not particularly
broad-based, and demonstrations called in 2001 against the U.S.-led
war in Afghanistan did not draw large crowds.
Still, while Pakistan has always been rife with sectarian
violence and foreigners have been targeted before, the level of
attacks in 2002 was unprecedented, and analysts say radicals could
become even more emboldened if Iraq is attacked.
"I think that should be a cause of concern for the government,"
said Gen. Rashid Quereshi, a spokesman for Pakistani President Pervez
Musharraf.
Pakistan's defining moment - and the main reason for its
heightened level of violence - came after the September 11
terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and on the
Pentagon, when Gen. Musharraf chose to ditch the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan and support the United States.
The military leader ordered his intelligence agencies to help
track down al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives, and banned homegrown
Islamic radical groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.
Washington gave Pakistan billions of dollars in aid and debt
forgiveness, and renewed military contacts with the country.
But Gen. Musharraf's decisions left radicals feeling betrayed.
On Jan. 23, Mr. Pearl was abducted while working on a story about
Islamic extremists in Karachi. A month later, U.S. diplomats received
a grisly videotape of his murder. Ahmed Omar Saeed, a British-born
militant, has been sentenced to death by a Pakistani court for his
role in the crime.
On March 17, assailants threw grenades into a Protestant church
within walking distance of the U.S. Embassy, killing five persons,
including an embassy employee and her 17-year-old daughter.
In Karachi, a suicide bombing killed 11 French engineers and
three others in May, and a car bomb outside the U.S. Consulate killed
12 Pakistanis in June. Authorities also said they foiled a plot to
assassinate Gen. Musharraf in Karachi.
In July, assailants threw a grenade at foreigners touring an
archaeological site, injuring 12 persons. In August, armed men stormed
into a Christian school filled with foreign children east of Islamabad
and killed six persons, all Pakistani. Four days later, grenades
hurled at a church near a Presbyterian hospital left four dead.
And in September, gunmen entered the offices of a Christian
welfare organization in Karachi, tied up the staff and shot eight of
them in the head.
On Dec. 5, an explosion rocked Macedonia's consulate in Karachi.
Investigators found three bodies inside - two men and a woman
- each with their hands and feet bound and their throats slit.
Messages scrawled on a wall referred to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda
group and warned against "infidels." Investigators say it may have
been revenge for the shooting deaths of seven Pakistanis in a van that
ran a roadblock in Macedonia the previous March.
Finally, assailants covered in burkas, a traditional women's
garb, tossed a grenade during Christmas services at a village church
in central Pakistan, killing three persons and wounding 11.
Besides the violence, another cause for concern is the strong
showing of a hard-line religious bloc in Oct. 10 elections. Religious
leaders now in parliament and in charge of two key provinces near the
border with Afghanistan have made inflammatory anti-U.S. comments
almost daily.
Maulana Azam Tariq, whose pro-Taliban group has been labeled a
terrorist organization by the United States, was elected to parliament
from jail, and a court recently ordered him released. His
Sipah-e-Sahaba group is suspected in more than 400 killings.
Religious tensions were felt at the opening of parliament, when
newly sworn-in lawmakers held an impromptu prayer session on Nov. 19
for Aimal Khan Kasi, a Pakistani executed five days earlier in
Virginia for the 1993 murder of two CIA workers.
Although the religious bloc failed to win a place in the new
governing coalition, the hard-liners now have a voice in the political
mainstream, and that may mean violence will decline.
Among the radicals, "there is a sense that 'Now that we are
involved politically, we don't need to show our militancy,'" said Gen.
Masood.
Still, such optimism would melt away quickly after a new attack
on foreigners here. Some embassies and Western aid organizations are
already drawing up plans to get their nationals out if a U.S.-led war
is undertaken against Iraq.
================================================================================
BBC News
Thursday, 7 March, 2002, 16:46 GMT
Musharraf says Pearl 'too intrusive'
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf says that the murdered US
journalist Daniel Pearl was "over-intrusive" in his pursuit of a
story.
General Musharraf said in Islamabad that the murder was unfortunate,
but journalists needed to be aware of the risks they face and act
accordingly.
Speaking at a conference, he added that the Pakistani authorities
remained committed to investigating Mr Pearl's killing.
He said a decision would be made soon on whether the chief suspect,
Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, known as Sheikh Omar, would be tried for Mr
Pearl's murder or extradited to the United States.
Mr Pearl, who worked for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in
January. His death was confirmed last month.
Legal representation
President Musharraf made no direct reference to the investigation that
Mr Pearl was conducting into the involvement of Islamic militants in
acts of terrorism in the United States.
But the president said the reporter had become over-involved in the
story, which he said he should not have been.
He said the government will only decide on whether or not to extradite
Sheikh Omer once the police have completed their investigations into
the murder.
His comments followed a decision by Karachi magistrates to allow the
British-born militant to hire a lawyer before he is formally charged.
Senior Superintendent of Police Manzoor Mughal told the AFP news
agency that Sheikh Omar had received permission to contact his family
to organise legal representation.
The suspect appeared in court on Wednesday, when he was identified by
a taxi driver, who said he had dropped Mr Pearl at a restaurant, where
he saw Sheikh Omar greet the journalist.
The driver said he then saw Sheikh Omar drive Mr Pearl away.
A video recording showing the death of the journalist was sent to the
US Consulate in Karachi about a month later.
Cross-examining
Three other men are also in custody on charges of e-mailing
photographs of Mr Pearl on Sheikh Omar's orders soon after the
journalist's abduction.
A lawyer working for them, Khwaja Naveed, said he expected Sheikh
Omar's lawyer - once he is appointed - to be able to cross-examine the
taxi driver.
The driver's statement will be formally recorded at the court on
Saturday.
At his first appearance in court, Sheikh Omar said he was behind the
kidnapping, but he retracted the statement at a later hearing.
He is expected to face murder charges when his period in police
custody expires on 12 March.
The United States has asked for Sheikh Omar's extradition in
connection with the kidnapping of another American in the 1990s.
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