Thursday, September 28, 2006

Daniel Pearl & Musharraf

This snippet from my (as yet mostly unpublished) interview with KTM Director Mathieu Verboud:
Luke : One of the comments you make in the movie brochure (pdf) is Daniel Pearl - is his story directly related to Sibel Edmonds?

Mathieu : Before 9/11, Robert Baer was apparently the first to brief Daniel Pearl about the role of jihadist groups in Pakistan - and the fact that all road always lead to Pakistan.

When 911 happened, lots of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia - but lots of them are connected to the jihad in Pakistan - and Pearl wants to go there to see for himself. He wanted to talk to key people, and the people he eventually got in contact with happened to be very dangerous Islamic fanatics.

Now some say that Pearl wanted to know the Islamic connection to the nuclear effort in Pakistan, or secrets being passed by the Pakistani government to al-Qaeda. David Albright, who is a living encyclopedia in these matters, will confirm that this is indeed a true question: something occurred, but what ? Pearl may have wanted to know. All we know is he was abducted and killed. We also know that the ISI, Pakistan’s dreaded intelligence service, was cooperating to a degree with the FBI’s search of Pearl’s whereabouts.

from the AP today:
Musharraf Memoir Links Al-Qaeda #3 to Daniel Pearl Murder

The former top al-Qaida operative accused of masterminding the Sept. 11 attacks either killed or participated in the murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl, Pakistan's president has alleged for the first time.

In his memoirs released this week, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf accused Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of taking part in Pearl's killing in the southern port city of Karachi following his Jan. 23, 2002 kidnapping. Mohammed is in U.S. custody in Guantanamo Bay.

"The man who may have actually killed Pearl or at least participated in his butchery, we eventually discovered, was none other than Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, al-Qaida's No. 3," Musharraf wrote in "In The Line of Fire," which was released Monday.

Mohammed has never been officially linked to Pearl's murder during police investigations or the trial that resulted in four Islamic militants being convicted and sentenced to death for the killing.

(above is cross posted at sibeledmonds.blogspot.com)

do you think maybe that Pearl was killed by people other than KSM? or do you trust Musharraf?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

lukery,

Very interesting stuff today! I had not heard anything re: Sibel Edmonds in New England this week. The Daniel Pearl story takes on new meaning for what we know today about the AQ Khan network and the reticence of both BushCo and Pakistan to investigate Khan's network more fully.

And do you think the outing of the computer expert and alleged al-Qaeda operative Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan by BushCo was a very public effort to slam on the brakes of the other Khan investigation? (sorry, I have no bridges, just wondering out loud)

Anonymous said...

hi lukery,

I guess my other post got lost just now. Very interesting stories today. Congrats on the interviews.
Have not heard anything Sibel related in New England today.

Wondering if the Danny Pearl story will weave together with more than just the AQ Khan story.

lukery said...

Hi pdaly. nice to see you over here.

"Wondering if the Danny Pearl story will weave together with more than just the AQ Khan story."
The new movie about sibel seems to indicate that a lot of the stuff that she is saying is that the 'AQKhan network' shuold probably be renamed 'the richard perle & doug feith network' - or something similar - and it wouldnt surprise me to learn that Val Plame can get tied into that too (and Richard Barlow)

good question re Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan - i'm not really sure how that fits in. i always had lots of doubts abuot that story becuase his operational security was so bad. perhaps he just 'knew' that he was protected - and if so, perhaps we need to take a closer look at that story as you've suggested. Perhaps bushco was doing more than jumping in too early for (domestic) political gain on that one.

what do you mean by not hearing about Sibel this week? (btw - check out the reviews do the movie over at the other blog)