Did Pearl Die Because Pakistan Deceived CIA?
Did Pearl die because Pakistan deceived CIA?
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pitt...b/s_20141.html
Sunday, March 3, 2002
WASHINGTON - The murder of Daniel Pearl continues to torment the conscience of many in Washington who make and implement our government's policy decisions. As it should.
Discovering that Pearl had been stabbed to death before President Bush met with Pakistani Gen. Pervez Musharraf in Washington on Feb. 14 is a sad commentary on American power. Exactly where intelligence failed is unclear. Maybe the deceit and distrust that permeate the upper reaches of Islamabad kept the news from Musharraf. Maybe not. What is clear is the high voltage investigation that should have taken place had short-circuited.
Coming into focus now is at least the "who" of what happened to Pearl. The kidnapping and killing was the work of a British-born and educated Islamic fanatic, Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, 28, son of a wealthy Pakistani clothing manufacturer. He grew up in Deyne Court Gardens, Wanstead, London, and was educated at the exclusive Forest School in Snaresbrook, east London, where he was considered a brilliant pupil.
The Washington Post is pumping up public fears of a nuclear attack by terrorists when the most likely threats come from other quarters. Read about it in Sunday's "Dateline D.C.'' column, a Tribune-Review exclusive.
Saeed Sheikh went on to the London School of Economics to study mathematics and later was recruited to go to Bosnia as an aid worker. He returned to the United Kingdom a convinced Islamic fanatic.
DEVOTED KIDNAPPER
In 1994, when Saeed Sheikh was just 20, he kidnapped three Brits and an American in Kashmir. Eventually the victims were rescued. Saeed Sheikh was shot and arrested by the Indian police, tried, convicted and imprisoned. In 1999, his gang hijacked an Indian airliner, flew it into Afghanistan and, after killing one passenger, released 155 others in exchange for Sheikh.
Upon his release from prison in India, Saeed Sheikh was flown to Kandahar in Afghanistan where he met and joined up with Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida group. Some believe that after the successes of the U.S. military, Saeed Sheikh has acted as a "go between" for the "tall man" — as bin-Laden is known — and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI). It is believed he helped produce bin Laden's latest taped interview two weeks ago, already seen by the CIA and the Department of Defense and expected to be released by al-Qaida to a Gulf radio station within a few days.
In November 2001, a secret indictment from an American grand jury charged Saeed Sheikh with the 1994 kidnapping. At the time of his indictment, Saeed Sheikh was in the city of Lahore with his wife celebrating the birth of his son.
Early in February, about 10 days after Daniel Pearl was kidnapped, Saeed Sheikh went to the ISI base in Lahore. It is said he was there for a week working out a deal for how little he would say about the ISI's support for terrorist groups in Kashmir and Pakistan in exchange for not being extradited to the United States. Neither the Pakistani police nor the U.S.
Embassy nor the FBI who were in Islamabad investigating the kidnapping were told. The deal done, a brazen Saeed Sheikh gave himself up to police, telling them of Pearl's capture but misleading them on every possible fact — including his ISI linkage.
BOASTS AND DETAILS
Due to his boasting to the police, we now know that Saeed Sheikh's gang — pompously calling itself now the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty — along with kidnapping and killing Western victims in Kashmir, staged the attacks on Kashmir and India's parliaments in November and December of last year. They started this year with shooting up the American Centre in Kolkata, India, when Secretary of State Colin Powell was visiting last month.
Many and varied sources have told Washington officials that in all these attacks, Saeed Sheikh had logistical and operational support from the ISI in Karachi and Islamabad. ISI also helped him form and operate the Jaish-e-Muhammed — Muhammed's Army — for his terrorist campaigns in Kashmir.
Despite face-to-face meetings between President Musharraf and President Bush, U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Wendy Chamberlain and FBI Director Robert Mueller, Saeed Sheik was neither arrested nor placed under surveillance. One important message did come through: The Islamabad government, by way of high level diplomats, reminded the State Department that there is no extradition agreement between the United States and Pakistan.
We who are comfortable — perhaps even complacent — here at home might tend to forget that America is at war, a war whose initial successes depended on Pakistan. While the war against the Afghanistan Taliban and the thugs of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida was being fought, Washington made a decision to deal with Pakistan's terrorists when the shooting ended.
It might have been a miscalculation, with the growing realization that the Pakistani government, as led by Musharraf, is becoming a major discomfort to the White House and the State Department.
POWERED BY THE CIA?
But there is also a tragedy of disbelief. There are many in Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections with our own CIA. The theory is that with such intense pressure to locate bin Laden, Saeed Sheikh was bought and paid for. True or not, it would be logical for the CIA to recruit an intelligent, young political criminal with contacts in both India and Pakistan. That he was uncontrollable may not have been a factor — until too late!
Another wake-up call for those for whom the war is far, far away: Saeed Sheikh has long had close contacts with the "Tanseem ul-uqra" (the Group of the Impoverished), which claims close ties with the Muslims of the Americas — a U.S. tax-exempt group claiming about 3,000 members in Red House, Va.; the Baladullah Estate in Fresno, Calif.; and various groups in Colorado, New York State and the Caribbean.
The American law enforcement community knows ul-Fuqra as a group whose members are suspected of at least 13 fire bombings and 17 murders, as well as theft and credit-card frauds. Recently, the State Department's added ul-Fuqra to its list of terrorist organizations as one "seeking to purify Islam through violence." The founder of ul-Fuqra is a Pakistani, Pir (meaning "respected teacher") Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, 65
This "respected teacher" left the United States in 1993 after for first World Trade Center bombing. Gilani, a mentor of Saeed Sheikh and an ISI "person," is now home in Lahore but maintains contact by telephone with his American followers.
Three weeks ago he was arrested but released after three days.
Amid the sadness and shock of Daniel Pearl's murder, the strongest message possible was sent to the United States: The Taliban may have been defeated, but terrorism remains a strong option to the brutal fanatics who continue to seek ways to destroy us.
