U.S. officials familiar with the investigation of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's murder now say they believe he was killed by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged chief organizer of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S.
If the belief proves correct, it would be the first known episode of Mr. Mohammed -- whom the U.S. calls one of Osama bin Laden's closest aides -- personally carrying out one of the deadly acts that he is better known for simply organizing. It also would resolve a question following numerous arrests and four convictions stemming from Mr. Pearl's murder last year: Who was the 38-year-old reporter's actual killer?
Mr. Mohammed, suspected of being the al Qaeda terror network's operations chief, was arrested in March 2003 in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi, near the capital of Islamabad, and is being held in an undisclosed location.
Now Bush administration officials have told The Wall Street Journal and Mariane Pearl, Mr. Pearl's widow, that they have developed credible, corroborated information that Mr. Mohammed was "directly involved along with the men recently convicted in Pakistan" in the murder of Mr. Pearl.
Mr. 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 a videotape that depicted his murder. It showed only Mr. Pearl's face, but not those of a group of men who, according to captured suspects, restrained him while one of them slit the reporter's throat with a knife.
Mr. Mohammed, 38, is one of nine people in custody in the Pearl case. Until now, law-enforcement officials have considered him a plotter, financier and organizer of major al Qaeda attacks that he monitors from afar. He is accused of plotting to blow up 12 U.S. airliners in the mid-1990s. He also is accused of helping to plot the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks and a suicide bombing at a Tunisian synagogue last year that killed 22 people.
In April 2002 -- almost a year before his capture -- he gave a clandestine interview to Yosri Fouda, a reporter for the Qatar-based television agency al Jazeera. At one point, Mr. Fouda wrote in an account of the meeting, Mr. Mohammed handed him a video recording of Mr. Pearl's murder, and asked him to distribute it to Western media.
Last year, four men were convicted of organizing Mr. Pearl's kidnapping and e-mailing demands and photos of the captive reporter to news agencies. A judge handed down a death sentence to Omar Saeed, who trapped Mr. Pearl by masquerading as a follower of a cleric with whom the reporter was seeking an interview. Mr. Saeed met with Mr. Pearl in Rawalpindi and, using a false identity, exchanged several e-mails with him, then lured him to Karachi.
Four other men are in custody for allegedly picking up Mr. Pearl from outside a Karachi restaurant where he awaited a ride to an interview with the cleric, then abducting him and guarding him at a nursery on the city's outskirts. Two of the four additional suspects led authorities to Mr. Pearl's body in May 2002, and described the last day of the reporter's life.
On Jan. 31 or Feb. 1, a phone call was received by one of the guards alerting them that some men would come to the nursery and that they shouldn't be interfered with, investigators quote the suspects as saying. Afterward, the nursery's owner -- a businessman named Saud Memon -- drove up with three Arabic-speaking men, the investigators say. One of the men spoke with Mr. Pearl, ordered one of the others to videotape Mr. Pearl's replies and killed the reporter, according to one suspect. It now is believed this main participant was Mr. Mohammed, an ethnic Pakistani who grew up in Kuwait and went to Chowan College in North Carolina. Pakistani authorities are seeking Mr. Memon, a garment-factory owner in Karachi. Last week, the U.S. froze the U.S. assets of the al Akhtar Trust for alleged terrorist activities, and named Mr. Memon a financier of that organization.
Reports of Mr. Mohammed's alleged role as Mr. Pearl's killer surfaced several months ago, but officials repeatedly dismissed them. But the investigators' allegation of Mr. Mohammed's complicity now lends credence to the two suspects' account of Mr. Pearl's death. It isn't clear whether Mr. Mohammed himself confessed under interrogation or whether some other fresh evidence emerged to convince the officials otherwise.
Among the many unresolved questions in the Pearl case have been the most basic ones: Who ordered him killed, and why did they do it? If Mr. Mohammed is indeed found to be the killer, that could answer the first question. Until his arrest, he was regarded as Mr. bin Laden's operations chief, so he wouldn't necessarily require anyone's orders for a relatively small operation. The second question remains unanswered, though.
In addition, it isn't clear whether Mr. Mohammed's only role was to kill Mr. Pearl, or whether he was involved earlier in the plot, such as at the organization stage. From evidence they have compiled so far, senior Karachi police officials have concluded that Mr. Pearl was kidnapped by one group -- organized by Mr. Saeed, who told investigators Mr. Pearl was simply a target of opportunity -- but that another set of militants assumed control later. An initial e-mail from the kidnappers didn't suggest Mr. Pearl's life was in danger, but a second message sent toward the end of January 2002 included a death threat. Mr. Saeed suggested to authorities that he alone organized the kidnapping.
Jerusalem Post ^ | Oct. 24, 2003 | Khaled Abu Toameh
Posted on 10/23/2003 11:14 PM EDT by Alouette
Fatah's Aksa Martyrs Brigades distributed leaflets in Jerusalem on Wednesday threatening to execute Palestinians who sell their property to Jews or act as intermediaries in such deals.
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"The Aksa Martyrs Brigades warn those thieves and traitors who are selling [Arab-owned] lands through Israeli real estate agents," said the leaflets, some of which were distributed on the Temple Mount.
They accused a group of Palestinians of trying to sell land to Jewish families near the Shimon Hatzadik Tomb in Sheikh Jarrah. Two of the Palestinians named in the fliers are lawyers accused of serving as middlemen in land deals with Jews.
"The Aksa Martyrs Brigades has decided to execute the traitors in public," the leaflets stated. The PA mufti of Jerusalem has in recent years issued repeated threats to Palestinians involved in land deals with Jews.
He said Islamic law forbids the washing and wrapping in shrouds of the body of land dealers, praying for their souls in mosques, and burying them in a Muslim cemetery.
The Palestinian Authority decided in 1997 to forbid the sale of Arab-owned land directly or via intermediaries to Jews.
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