Musharraf takes on spy agency

Musharraf may be risking the ire of that wounded tiger himself. In the wake of his Jan. 12 speech, cutting all ties to Kashmiri and other militant groups, Musharraf ordered the arrests of dozens of leaders of Pakistan's small but influential religious parties. Most important, he is believed to have began a massive reorganization of the ISI, shutting down the units that coordinated activities in Afghanistan and Indian-controlled Kashmir. The Kashmir unit, in particular, had close ties with radical Islamic groups such as the Harkatul Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Muhammad, both of which trained recruits in Al Qaeda training camps.

The chief suspect in the Pearl kidnapping, Ahmad Omar Saeed Sheikh, is a top leader within Jaish-e-Muhammad.

Yesterday, Fahad Naseem confessed in a Karachi court that he sent e-mails that announced the kidnapping of Pearl. Mr. Naseem told the judge that Mr. Saeed ordered him to send the e-mail and that there were plans to abduct someone who was "anti-Islam, and a Jew."

While some here worry that the Pearl kidnapping is a sign that Musharraf could be losing the support of his own military because of his antiextremist crackdown, others say there are few signs of trouble so far.

"I'm surprised that more hasn't happened actually," says Mushahid Hussein, former information minister under Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's twice-deposed prime minister. "This guy is reshaping alliances with Afghanistan, restructuring the Pakistani military. There have been U-turns on all of these, but no backlash that you can talk about. The people of Pakistan have a better understanding of why Musharraf has done what he has done."

As for the Pakistani Army, which during the 1980s lowered its educational standards for admission and recruited staunch Muslims, Mr. Hussein says soldiers and officers will remain "strongly disciplined" and loyal to Musharraf, their commander in chief.

Even with this support, the duration of Pearl's disappearance is a thorn in Musharraf's side. Pakistani police admit that they have reached a dead end in their search for Pearl and his captors.

Pakistani officials say that the investigation will continue "with the same intensity and vigor" as before, and that the interrogation of Mr. Sheikh has revealed little. Abir Rashid Khan, spokesman for the Pakistani Interior Ministry says police are operating under the assumption that Pearl is alive. "So far, that is the assumption," he says.

Pearl's disappearance is much different than the hundreds of kidnappings of Pakistani journalists that have occurred in the past 50 years, which used traditional ploys of intimidation, extortion, or ransom notes.

As an investigative reporter delving into the financial ties between Al Qaeda and religious parties here, Pearl may have touched a raw nerve among the people he was investigating. As an American in Pakistan, Pearl may have presented a target of revenge and a chance to embarrass Musharraf in front of his US allies. And at a time when many Pakistani extremist leaders remain behind bars, Pearl may still be a valuable bargaining chip for the people who lured him into captivity a month ago.

"It's a tremendous act of defiance," says Rifaat Hussein, a political scientist at Quaid-I-Azam University in Islamabad. "Despite all the punishment they have gotten and the arrests, [militant groups] still are capable of doing something like this."

"Obviously, there's a much larger chain of people involved in this kidnapping," Dr. Hussein adds. "These are biological self-producing cells."

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