Asia Times: Strange fish caught in Daniel Pearl dragnet


	February 2, 2002	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

Strange fish caught in Daniel Pearl dragnet
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - While the kidnapping case of the Wall Street Journal's Daniel Pearl continues to take bizarre twists and turns, Pakistan has officially blamed the Indian state apparatus for the kidnapping, saying the aim is to defame Pakistan.

Meanwhile, as Asia Times Online has previously reported, investigation of the case is resulting in exposure of the role of Pakistani intelligence agencies in the affairs of Afghanistan and Kashmir, and their channels of operation. The latest example of this is the detention of a high-profile, retired official of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, ostensibly as part of the United States-coordinated - in reality, US-supervised - investigation of the kidnapping.

The director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, Major-General Rashid Qureshi, said in Karachi on Thursday that Pakistani investigations conducted so far into the mysterious disappearance of the American journalist strongly indicated "Indian linkage" to the episode.

Qureshi, speaking at the daily press briefing at the Foreign Office, said that he was not in a position to discuss in detail progress in hunting down those responsible for Pearl's disappearance, in order to avoid jeopardizing investigations and alerting the perpetrators, but "all that I can say is that there is an Indian linkage" calculated to defame Pakistan. He added that he suspected the kidnapping might eventually prove to have been stage-managed by India.

India has been quick to deny the "ridiculous" allegation.

Qureshi said there was no doubt that there were many Indian agents active in Pakistan, trying to create problems by engaging in kidnapping and murder.

With each passing day, mysterious chapters - which often have no apparent link to the Pearl kidnapping - are being added to the saga. One example is the way Jamiatul Faqarah has been implicated in the case. This organization was banned by the US State Department several years ago, but since then its name has remained buried in the files. Its activities were restricted to India, and unlike most other militant groups, it had no direct contact with Afghanistan's Taliban regime.

According to sources, the US investigators are working on a theory that the Pearl kidnapping was carried out by renegade elements of the ISI. The investigators demanded, and received, a list of ISI operatives who had served in the agency's Afghan cell in the past five years. As a result, several people have been detained, including an important former ISI official, Khalid Khawaja. The detainees are being interrogated by agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Khalid, the sources say, had been involved with the ISI's Afghanistan operations before his retirement. Even after his retirement, he had been in contact with Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden. He may or may not be involved in the Pearl kidnapping, but it is said that he has information that, if divulged, would deal a blow to Pakistani secret service operations in Kashmir and their spy network still operating in Afghanistan.

While the US-led investigation nets all sorts of odd fish, the mainstream Pakistani investigation being carried out by the police is at a standstill.

Three days ago, this correspondent was informed by sources that police had found an important link in the case that would at least lead them to the identity of the kidnappers. However, on Thursday the inspector general of police in Sindh province held a news conference in Karachi and announced that police had traced phone calls between an Islamabad-based journalist and Pearl. They contacted the journalist to learn about the activities of Pearl before kidnapping. The journalist informed them that he had set up a meeting between Pearl and a militant name Arif, a resident of southern Punjab. When the police got to Arif's residence, people were saying prayers for the peace of his soul. He was dead, but how, when, and where the killing took place are details that remain unknown.

While everybody watches the progress of the Pearl case, a separate development has occurred that has gone largely unnoticed. Since the ban imposed by Pakistan's government on radical religious outfits, a new jihadi organization called al-Saiqa has emerged. According to reports, al-Saiqa has declared Pakistan Darul Harab (the home of war) and Darul Kufar (home of infidels) and says it will carry out attacks on law-enforcement agencies.

In the first armed assault in Pakistan since the ban, the new group hit a Frontier Constabulary (FC) patrol with rockets and sub-machine guns at Thakot in the North West Frontier province. Several of the constabulary were injured.

Handwritten Urdu pamphlets bearing al-Saiqa's name were found after the attack. They are said to criticize the government's policies: "Stop meddling in the affairs of Deeni Madaris, the religious institutions are the fort of Islam and we are its soldiers ... the guerrilla war in Pakistan will continue till the Islamic revolution. Now the bullets will not stop. Every Muslim should know that initially every guerrilla war is taken in a casual way but it expands gradually. We take prior responsibility for every attack and killing of law-enforcement men in Pakistan ... This country is Darul Harab and Darul Kufar and it is our duty to wage jihad against this non-Muslim government."

All these incidents, from the kidnapping of Daniel Pearl to the emergence of al-Saiqa, are new and strange developments that do not match the style of Paksitani militant groups. Investigators are working on theories that either some rogue elements of the establishment have revolted against the state, or Indian proxies have infiltrated Pakistani militant groups and are carrying out operations that will seriously jeopardize Pakistani secret operations in the region.

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