The Daniel Pearl Case: Questions And Answers

Is Daniel Pearl still alive or dead?

There is so far no conclusive evidence one way or the other. The onlyevidence one has are the contradictory statements of  Ahmed Omar SaeedSheikh of the Harkat-ul-Ansar (HuA) renamed as the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM)after the US designated the HuA as a foreign terrorist organisation inOctober,1997. 

The only versions of his statements available so far are those emanating fromthe Lahore and Karachi Police sources, whose credibility is weak. 

Initially, he was reported to have told the Lahore Police immediately afterhis arrest on February 12, 2002, that he believed that Pearl was still alive,but allegedly went back on this statement before a court in Karachi on February14 and said that he believed that Pearl was dead.

Who is Omar Sheikh?

He is a British citizen of Pakistani origin, who had studied for some time inthe London School of Economics.  He discontinued his studies and joined theHuA during the war in Bosnia, where the HuA had sent a contingent to help theBosnian Muslims in their fight against the Serbs.  In 1994, he kidnappedsome Western tourists in New Delhi to demand the release of Maulana Masood Azhar,then of the HuA, who had been detained by the Indian authorities.  He wasarrested by the Indian authorities.  

While in Tihar jail in New Delhi, he came into contact with Aftab Ansari, amafia leader of India, suspected of having masterminded the attack on thesecurity personnel guarding the American centre at Kolkata (Calcutta) on January22, 2002.  Aftab Ansari has since been arrested by the Dubai authoritieswhile he was about to board a flight to Karachi with a Pakistani passport undera different name and deported to India. He is presently under interrogation bythe Indian counter-terrorism authorities.  Maulana Masood Azhar and OmarSheikh had to be released by the Government of India in December,1999, toterminate the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Kandahar by the HuM. They proceeded to Pakistan from Kandahar -- Azhar to Bhawalpur in PakistaniPunjab and Omar Sheikh to Lahore.  

Omar Sheikh got married in Lahore and had been living with his wife in Lahoresince then.  His wife gave birth to a son at Lahore two months ago. He held a big party to celebrate the birth of his son, which was reportedlyattended by many local officials. 

While the Pakistani authorities have been admitting the presence of Azhar, aPakistani national, in Pakistani territory since January, 2000, they have tillnow been denying the presence of Omar Sheikh, a British national, in Pakistaniterritory though he made no secret of his stay in Lahore.  

Before October 8, 2000, he was frequently seen in parties hosted by Gen.Mohammad Aziz Khan, then a Corps Commander in Lahore and now Chairman of theJoint Chiefs of Staff Committee.  Aziz belongs to the Sudhan tribe ofPakistan-Occupied Kashmir (POK) and was the Chief of the clandestine Army ofIslam of the 1980s Afghan war vintage, consisting of the HuM/HuA, theLashkar-e-Toiba (LET), the Al Badr and the Al Qaeda of Osama bin Laden. The Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) of Azhar joined it in 2000.  Before 1999, he hadserved as the Deputy Director-General (DDG) of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)and in that capacity was the controlling officer of the ISI operations in Indiaand Afghanistan. In the beginning of 1999, Pervez Musharraf, then Chief of theArmy Staff (COAS), had him transferred to the GHQ as the Chief of the GeneralStaff (CGS).  

Before 1999, it was the practice in the Pakistan Army that the CGS, interalia, supervised the working of the Directorate-General of Military Intelligence(DGMI), but not that of the ISI, which reported directly to the COAS and thePrime Minister.  Musharraf ordered the transfer of the ISI division dealingwith India and Afghanistan to the GHQ and placed it under Aziz as the CGS sincehe did not trust Lt.Gen.Ziauddin, an engineer, who had been appointed by NawazSharif, the then Prime Minister, as the DG of the ISI.  The plans for theKargil intrusion in July 1999 had been drawn up by Aziz and Musharraf during thesecond tenure (1993-96) of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto as Prime Minister and implementedwithout the full knowledge of Sharif. During the separate visits of Sharif andZiauddin to Washington DC in the second half of 1999, they came under pressurefrom the Clinton Administration to co-operate with the US in the capture of binLaden in Taliban-controlled Afghan territory.  

On Sharif's orders, Ziauddin went to Kandahar without informing Musharraf,met Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Amir of the Taliban, and urged him to co-operatewith the US against bin Laden and to act against the cadres of the Sunniextremist Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), operating against the Shias of Pakistanfrom sanctuaries in Taliban-controlled territory. Musharraf came to know of thisand sent Aziz secretly to Kandahar to direct Mullah Omar that he should notcarry out the orders of Ziauddin or Sharif and that he should take instructionsonly from Aziz.  

During his trial under the Anti-Terrorism Act, Sharif mentioned his dismissalof Lt.Gen. (retd) Moinuddin Haider, a Mohajir and a close personal friend ofMusharraf, as the Governor of Sindh, and his acceptance of the request from thethen US President Bill Clinton to order the withdrawal of the Pakistani troopsfrom Indian territory in the Kargil area and to send Ziauddin to Kandahar totell Mulla Omar to co-operate with the US as the major factors which led to anirreparable divide between him and Musharraf.  The court denied himpermission to testify in detail on how Musharraf frustrated every effort of histo co-operate with the US on the bin Laden issue and his lawyer, who waspreparing a written statement on the subject, was gunned down by unidentifiedelements in Karachi and all his papers were stolen or destroyed. Musharraf, whocame under increasing pressure from the US to act against Aziz, transferred himout of the GHQ and posted him as a Corps Commander in Lahore and on October 8,2001, posted him as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee.  

Despite these transfers, Aziz continued to play an active role in monitoringand supervising the ISI operations in India and Afghanistan, supervised theemergency evacuation of the serving personnel of Pakistan'smilitary-intelligence establishment from the Taliban-controlled territory afterthe terrorist strikes of September 11, 2001, in the US, organised theclandestine visits of bin Laden to Peshawar to undergo dialysis in the militaryhospital there and has reportedly been helping the survivors of the Taliban, theAl Qaeda and the Army of Islam in re-locating and re-grouping themselves in safesanctuaries in Pakistani territory.  

It was in that capacity that Aziz was maintaining contact with Omar Sheikhand using his services. After September 11, 2001, there were as yetunsubstantiated allegations that Omar Sheikh had transferred a sum of US $100,000 to Mohammad Atta, the mastermind of September 11, and thatLt.Gen.Mahmood Ahmed, the then DG of the ISI, had helped Omar Sheikh in makingthis transfer. From his base in Lahore, Omar Sheikh had been frequentlytravelling  in Pakistan itself as well as in Taliban-controlled territoryin Afghanistan.

Why did the Pakistani authorities suspect the involvement of Omar Sheikhin the kidnapping of Pearl?

After the kidnapping, the media in Pakistan received through E-Mail picturesof the US journalist in captivity with dire threats to execute him if theirdemands were not met.  Three persons were identified by the police ashaving transmitted these pictures, arrested and questioned.  They mentionedthe role of Omar Sheikh.

When was Omar Sheikh actually arrested?

According to the Pakistani authorities, he was arrested at Lahore by thelocal Police on February 12 after Musharraf had reached the US on his bilateralvisit, but Omar Sheikh reportedly told the Karachi court that he had himselfvoluntarily surrendered to the Lahore military authorities on February 5, threedays before Musharraf left Islamabad for the US, to prevent the harassment ofhis wife and baby son by the Lahore Police.  

Independent reports indicate that the Lahore Police had rounded up all therelatives of Omar Sheikh except his wife and child in order to force him tosurrender.  When he did not do so, they issued a warning that they woulddetain his wife too, thereby leaving the baby with nobody to look after it. He thereupon surrendered himself to a retired Army officer living in Lahore whohad worked under Aziz in the ISI.  He did not want to surrender to theLahore Police due to fears of torture.  This officer reportedly informedAziz in Islamabad who had intitially Omar Sheikh questioned by officers of theISI before handing him over to the Police on February 12.  It is speculatedthat Aziz wanted to make it certain that Omar Sheikh would not tell the Karachipolice during his interrogation about the contacts of Musharraf and Aziz withbin Laden.

Did Aziz alert Musharraf and Lt.Gen.(retd) Moinuddin Haider, the InteriorMinister, who is co-ordinating the investigation, about the surrender of OmarSheikh immediately after it took place? If so, did Musharraf immediately informthe US authorities about it and associate them with the interrogation?

No definitive answers are available.  Either way, l'affaire Daniel Pearland Omar Sheikh tends to confirm India's perception of Musharraf as anuntrustworthy person.  If Aziz had informed him on February 5 itself andMusharraf had deliberately kept the US in the dark, it shows him as perfidious. If Aziz had kept Musharraf in the dark, it shows Musharraf as no longer ineffective control of the military-intelligence establishment in Pakistan.

Which are the suspect organisations so far?

The Jamaat-ul-Fuqra (JUF) based in Lahore and headed by Syed Mubarik Ali ShahJilani, the JeM, the HuM and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) are stronglysuspected by the Karachi Police.  

The JUF has an active presence in the US, Canada and the Caribbean and Pearlhad reportedly planned to meet, amongst others, Jilani to check whether hisorganisation had any links with Richard Reid, the so-called shoe bomber, whosefather is a British resident of Caribbean origin. The JeM, the HuM and the HUJIhad sustained large casualties during the US air strikes in Afghanistan andtheir surviving cadres have been bitter against the US.  

These three organisations are closely inter-connected.  Theiroffice-bearers and cadres are largely drawn from Pakistani Punjab.  Many ofthem, including Azhar himself, had started their terrorist career in the SSPand, consequently, nurse strong anti-Shia feelings.  

The HuM and the HUJI came into existence during the Afghan war of the 1980sas separate organisations.  They then united to form the HuA.  Theyresumed their separate existence after the USA designated the HuA as a foreignterrorist organisation in October, 1997.  

The JeM was formed by Azhar in the beginning of 2000 by splitting from the HuMdue to diferences with the HuM leadership over the handling of accounts while hewas in jail in India.  Despite personality clashes, these organisationsclosely co-operate with each other on the ground and assist each other. Since October 7, 2001, they share a redoubled anger against the US. 

In the past, the HuM and the HUJI had specialised in kidnappings for ransom. Foreign terrorist organisations trained by the HuM and the HUJI such as those ofChechnya and the Southern Philippines (Abu Sayyaf) also specialise inkidnappings.  Since its formation in 2000, the JeM has not undertaken anymajor kidnapping operation.  Its speciality has been suicide attacks withhand-held weapons and suicide bombing with explosives.  The HuM and theHUJI have not come to notice for any major suicide attacks. The HuM and the HUJIhave closer links with Pakistan's military-intelligence establishment than the JeM.

What does the incident speak of the character and personality of Musharraf?

It shows him in very poor light.  His statements have been ascontradictory as those of Omar Sheikh.  Before leaving for the US, he saidhe was reasonably certain that Pearl was alive and confident that he would begot released.  During his joint press conference with President Bush inWashington DC on February 13, he held out a similar assurance.  The nextday, he wriggled out of this statement while talking to the media and contendedthat it was only his guess  from the fact [as he put it crudely, in his ownwords] that Pearl's dead body had not been found.  

After the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane in December 1999, Musharrafdenied that Pakistani nationals were responsible or that they had taken shelterin Pakistani territory.  He did not honour the red-alert notices from theINTERPOL for their arrest on the ground that the hijackers of the HuM were notin Pakistani territory. 

Now, his own Police in Karachi is admitting that the hijackers had beenliving in Pakistan and that at least one of them had played a leading role inthe kidnapping of Pearl. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. ofIndia and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)