ISLAMABAD, 5 February — The Federal Bureau of Investigation has joined the hunt for kidnapped US reporter Daniel Pearl, interior minister said yesterday.

But a day after a false alarm that Pearl’s body had been found dumped outside the southern city of Karachi, intelligence sources said investigators were still groping in the dark for clues to the Wall Street Journal reporter’s whereabouts.

"Agents of the US FBI have also been allowed to join the investigation," Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters in Karachi. "We have a number of clues on which we are working and I am hopeful that Pearl will safely be recovered from the kidnappers." "I am hopeful that the missing US journalist is alive and we will trace him down," he said.

Police said their search had been expanded to all the four provinces and investigators were also checking for possible links between the kidnappers and criminal gangs. Police identified a missing man, Muhammad Hashim Qadeer, as a crucial link in the kidnapping of Pearl. "He is the main link and his arrest can lead to a major breakthrough," a senior officer involved in the investigation told AFP, requesting anonymity. Pearl’s wife Mariane, who is six months pregnant, said she wanted to talk to the kidnappers.

"The reason why we came to Pakistan is because we wanted to understand why...is there anger, why is there frustration, what can we do?" she told BBC television. "Please make contact with me, I’m ready."

Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil told Reuters Television a team of experienced investigators was working on several leads.

"We are very much hopeful that he is alive because so far we have not received any evidence of his death," he said.

The investigation, already cloaked in confusion by a flurry of hoax messages, took a new twist early yesterday when Pearl’s body was falsely reported to have been found near Karachi.

An ambulance service said it received a call shortly before midnight that a body had been dumped at Sohrab Goth about 20 km outside Karachi. But officials soon confirmed the dead man, who had been shot in the head, was not Pearl.

Before he disappeared, Pearl had been working on a story about alleged shoe-bomber Richard Reid and possible links to the Al-Qaeda network.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a top Pakistani journalist who has interviewed Bin Laden and Taleban leader Mulla Muhammad Omar, said Pearl and his wife came to meet him in the northwestern city of Peshawar a few days before the kidnapping.

"He wanted to ask about the whereabouts of Taleban leaders...who may have escaped to Pakistan," Yusufzai said. "I said they would not like to meet any journalists because they are underground."

Yusufzai said Pearl told him he intended to travel to Afghanistan and he was surprised when the reporter was suddenly reported missing in Karachi. Investigators have said Pearl may have been lured into a trap.