KARACHI, 1 February — The shadowy extremist group holding American journalist Daniel Pearl has extended the deadline for the execution of the kidnapped newsman by one day, according to an e-mail seen here yesterday.
"We give one more day. If America does not meet our demands we will kill Pearl. Then this cycle will continue and no American journalist will be able to enter Pakistan. Allah is with us," said the e-mail sent to Pakistani newspapers.
In Washington, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States could not meet the demands of the group holding the US journalist.
"The demands that the kidnappers have placed are not demands that we can meet or deal with," Powell told reporters.
The group has demanded better treatment for prisoners seized in the Afghan war and held in the US camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and the return of any Pakistani nationals among them to face trial in Pakistan. They have also warned all US journalists to leave the country.
Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl, 38, went missing eight days ago in the southern city of Karachi after going to interview a source for a story about militant groups.
An unknown group, calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, has claimed responsibility and had threatened to kill Pearl by 1135 GMT yesterday.
In previous e-mails, they protested the treatment of Pakistani and Afghan captives at the US prison camp in Cuba. The latest e-mail, in broken and misspelled English, was sent to various Pakistani newspapers around 7:00 p.m. (1400 GMT) yesterday but there was no indication it came from the same little known "movement" identified in earlier communications.
Sources at the Pakistani newspapers however said they believed it was from the people who had previously sent messages including photographs of Pearl with a gun to his head.
"U cannot fool us and find us. We are inside seas, oceans, hills, graveyards every where," said the latest message.
Newspaper sources said US consular officials in Karachi had visited their offices to discuss the e-mail message late yesterday.
Pakistani officials earlier said "progress" was made in their investigations, which are being assisted by agents from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Police said they had started "intense interrogation" of Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, leader of the little known militant group Tanzeem-ul-Fuqrahi whom Pearl had gone to interview on the day of his disappearance.
Gilani was arrested Wednesday in the northern city of Rawalpindi.
"We are taking the threat seriously and intense interrogation of Gilani has started to find some clues," said a senior police official on condition of anonymity.
Police in different regions have raided offices linked to Gilani’s little known group, seizing documents, a computer and other records, the official said. Gilani has denied any involvement. A senior police official claimed that a person investigators had succeeded in tracking down as an important link to the disappearance of Pearl had died. Syed Kamal Shah, the inspector general of police of the southern Sindh province, told reporters that the investigators had been looking for a person named Arif for his alleged links to the abductors. But once the police reached his hometown in Ahmedpur Sharqia, they found out that Arif had already died.
Meanwhile, authorities scrambled yesterday to beef up security for foreign journalists based in Pakistan.
The federal government directed the four provincial governments of Sindh, Punjab, NWFP and Balochistan to ask foreign journalists to enroll themselves with the information department of respective provinces. They would be given temporary accreditation cards and will have to notify about their stay in Pakistan and departure from the country. Hotels have also been issued directives in this regard.
Those registered with the administration will be provided security to avoid incidents of the kind faced by Pearl, but those refusing to follow the instructions will have nothing to do with the administration in Pakistan and will be responsible for their for their own safety. Pakistan embassies abroad have been asked to issue visas to foreign journalists after careful scrutiny.
Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Paul Steiger said in an e-mail message to the abductors to treat Pearl as a "messenger".
"I propose that you view Danny as a messenger," Steiger said in his e-mail message. "Killing Danny will achieve nothing for you," Steiger countered in his latest appeal, a copy of which was received here yesterday.
"His murder would be condemned by the entire world, and your group would be viewed as murderers without serious political objectives."
Steiger urged the captors to give Pearl a "detailed list of the issues and grievances that are important to you" and to explain their ideas and beliefs to the reporter, so that he "can articulate them to others."
"You have a story to tell, my paper can cover that story, and Danny can tell that story better than anyone else," Steiger wrote. "Danny’s safe release is a small price to pay for you to realize this goal."
Pakistan yesterday linked neighboring India to Pearl’s abduction. "What I can say at this stage is that there is an Indian link in this," military spokesman Maj. Gen. Rashid Qureshi told a press conference. India immediately dismissed the claim as "ridiculous."
Pearl’s pregnant wife Marianne told AFP in a telephone interview from Karachi that she was confident her husband would be freed, pleading to captors to take into account his "professional honesty and wish for dialogue."
The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) yesterday called for "immediate and unconditional release" of Pearl. "This is a dangerous moment for all journalists and media staff" working in the region, the Brussels-based IFJ said in a communique that expressed "serious concern" for the safety of Pearl. "Extra care must be taken in organizing work in the area," it said.
