KARACHI, Pakistan, Feb. 17 -- A suspect in the abduction of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl told police the kidnapping was a "warning shot" to the Pakistani president for his crackdown on militant Islamic groups, officials familiar with the investigation said today.
Sheik Omar Saeed told interrogators that three recent deadly attacks in India were also intended to undercut Gen. Pervez Musharraf's efforts to curb the activities of extremist groups in response to pressure from the United States, police officials said.
Saeed said attacks outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta, the Indian Parliament in New Delhi and a legislative assembly in Kashmir were aimed at provoking India into taking action against Pakistan. Extremist organizers -- some with ties to Saeed -- hoped Musharraf would be forced to back away from his public stand against militant activities, Saeed told police.
Saeed is affiliated with the Jaish-i-Muhammad militant group fighting in the disputed Himalayan border region of Kashmir. Police officials said they could not verify any connection between Saeed's organization and supporters and the attacks in India. But authorities said he provided detailed information about the incidents and some of the perpetrators.
That information, plus Saeed's confession in court last week that he had helped plan Pearl's abduction, have raised troubling new questions for Pakistani and U.S. law enforcement officials investigating the Pearl case, authorities from both countries said.
Saeed was detained for a week by non-police Pakistani authorities before the government acknowledged he was being held and turned him over to Sindh state police, officials said.
U.S. and Pakistani police investigators said the secret detention of Saeed casts doubt on his statements and any statements Pakistani authorities may have persuaded him to give, according to officials close to the investigation.
Some Pakistani security officials said they believed Saeed was lying about his role in the Indian terrorist attacks to boost his image among extremist followers. Others said the details he provided seemed to verify some of his claims.
During the past several days of interrogation, police said, Saeed told them that he had traveled to Afghanistan "a few days after September 11" to meet Osama bin Laden. Saeed's ties with several Arab associates of bin Laden have been described by other suspects questioned in the Pearl case, police said. Police said Saeed reportedly served as a guerrilla warfare instructor at training facilities in Afghanistan during the Taliban's rule.
Police also said Saeed provided them with unsolicited details about his relationship with Aftab Ansari, the alleged gangster and chief suspect in the shooting outside the U.S. cultural center in Calcutta in which five policemen died. Saeed said he met Ansari while the two men were jailed in New Delhi's Tihar prison.
Authorities said Saeed offered police the identities of the Kashmiri militants who stormed the Indian Parliament on Dec. 13. Saeed also said the suicide bomber who attacked the state parliament building in Srinagar, the summer capital of Indian Kashmir, on Oct. 1 was "more than a brother to me," one police official said.
Moore reported from Islamabad, Pakistan.
