MISSING REPORTER (Partial)
TERENCE SMITH: Welcome to you both. Mansoor Ijaz, you've been in touch, I understand, with Daniel Pearl, and even provided him with some contacts for sources among militant Islamic groups in Pakistan. Tell us about that.Make of it what you will.MANSOOR IJAZ, Investment Banker: Shortly after the tragic events of September 11, Mr. Pearl called me from Bombay and said he had been made aware that I had some contacts with some of the either former associates of Osama bin Laden or some of the more radical Islamic groups in Pakistan, which I did from other things that I had done in that region. And he wanted to know whether or not I would be willing to introduce him to them.
And I spent about an hour with him in that first telephone call essentially trying to understand what story he wanted to pursue to make sure I wasn't unnecessarily putting him in harm's way, because these are not people who understand mistakes very well. And I was absolutely convinced of his integrity, his honesty, his approach, and I made those contacts available to him.
And one of those contacts was the one who sent me an e-mail message last Friday morning, very early in the morning, essentially saying that Daniel was missing for the last 48 hours, was I aware of it, and what needed to be done. And that's when I started to proceed to get involved in this process.
TERENCE SMITH: And from these contacts that you had with him, did you have any sense of where he was going when he disappeared?
MANSOOR IJAZ: Well, I certainly can't say I've been in touch with him since the beginning of the year. I think the last conversation we had was just before Christmas, in which he was essentially iterating his story and he was definitely on to some very important and very sensitive items in that part of world. It's a very complex set of problems that he was trying to unravel and untangle. But I thought he was doing a pretty good job of it, and encouraged him while I got the chance.
Investigating Richard Reid
TERENCE SMITH: And he was trying to portray the groups and what they are up to and who they are, and their relationship, we understand, with Richard Reid.
MANSOOR IJAZ: Yes, I think in this particular case he essentially came to a point where he was trying to understand where Richard Reid had gotten his basis in Islamic radicalism. And that brought him into contact with people, one of whom was a man by the name of Sheik Mubarak ali Gilani, who we have been watching here in the United States for a number of years. He started a mosque in Brooklyn back in 1986, and this man is known to be one of the most viral radical Islamists anywhere in the world. And apparently, Richard Reid was one of his disciples, and I think that's the cornerstone that Daniel was working on when he went into this thing. And I think he may have uncovered the tip of an iceberg that may yet have many deep ramifications. ...
