The trail for Mohammed included a Sept. 11, 2002, raid on a Karachi hideout. During an exchange of fire lasting about four hours, Mohammed allegedly escaped, but Ramzi Binalshibh was allegedly captured and airlifted out of Pakistan for interrogation. German and U.S. investigative and intelligence agencies had been hunting for Binalshibh since September 2001; U.S. officials identified him as the 20th hijacker who couldn't join the 9/11 attack because he was unable to secure a visa into the United States. He was a member of the so-called Hamburg cell, which played a leading role in the planning, financing and execution of the Sept. 11 attack. Binalshibh is believed to have handpicked Mohammad Atta to lead the group of hijackers that flew planes into the World Trade Center.

Speculation about whether Mohammed was involved in Danny's kidnapping and murder began immediately after his capture. The three men who arrived on Danny's last day of captivity had been described to police as being of Yemeni origin. (There is some confusion about Mohammed's nationality, however; he has been described as a Kuwaiti-born and U.S.-educated Pakistani.)

Yet the news that Mohammed killed Pearl doesn't explain his motive. What would make al-Qaida target the Wall Street Journal's Asian bureau chief? There are several theories. Robert Baer, a former case officer with the CIA's directorate of operations, believes Pearl had begun to pursue Mohammed as a story for the Journal. Baer says Pearl called him the day after the Sept. 11 attack to talk about possible culprits, and that he told the reporter about Mohammed's role as a key aide to bin Laden going back to 1997. He also told Pearl, Baer says, that the government of Qatar protected Mohammed and would have information about his activities. After Danny's murder, Baer said that an official in the Qatar government told him that Danny had called the Foreign Ministry for information about Mohammed.

But Mariane and I weren't aware that Danny was pursuing a Mohammed story at the time of his kidnapping. He had come to Karachi to interview a Muslim cleric called Sheik Mubarek Gilani. He was investigating whether there were any ties between Gilani and Richard Reid, the alleged shoe bomber, who was seized on a Boston-bound American Airlines jet from Paris allegedly trying to ignite explosive in his shoes. But there is always the possibility that Danny was reporting on additional leads he gathered about the shadowy networks with al-Qaida ties. The French philosopher Lévy claims in his book that Danny was killed for reporting that Pakistan was sharing nuclear secrets with North Korea. But there is no evidence he had made any such links between the two countries.

Mohammed's involvement, however, does renew questions about possible links between Saudi Arabia and the kidnapping and murder because of well-known ties between individuals in Saudi Arabia (including, of course, 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers) and al-Qaida. At one point, U.S. investigators were pursuing leads that linked a mobile phone number in Riyadh to phone calls to the web of militants involved in the plot to kidnap and kill Danny. In addition, law enforcement investigators traced the first known public distribution of the video in May 2002 on the Internet to Riyadh. (At the time, Mariane and I received a phone call in Paris. "It's bad news. The video is on the Internet," said the voice on the other end. For two days, Mariane and I maneuvered between officials from Lycos U.K. to Scotland Yard to track the source of the video's posting. "An office building in Riyadh," we were told. We couldn't get any more information, and the investigation seemed to reach a dead end.)

But for the time being, the immediate questions that need to be answered are in Pakistan. And getting straight answers from anyone in ISI -- protected by proxies in the press -- will be difficult.

Inside Pakistani media circles, journalists refer to "agency reporters" who loosely work for two bosses: their editors and Pakistani intelligence agencies. In her book, "A Mighty Heart," Mariane Pearl singled out Kamran Khan, a journalist for the English-language News in Karachi and a Washington Post stringer, who wrote the first story that identified Danny as a Jewish reporter, information that Mariane has equated to a "death sentence" in Pakistan. Khan recently told the Washington Post that he was simply pursuing the story aggressively and didn't mean any harm.

Khan also published intelligence agency efforts to link India to the kidnapping by raising the possibility that I was a spy for India, claiming that I was Danny's "full-time assistant," identifying me as an "Indian journalist" (I was born in India, but have a U.S. passport and was raised a Muslim in the United States since the age of 4) and reporting falsely that Danny had brought me into Karachi to work with him. He also raised questions about why Danny would travel to Karachi from India, where he was based, saying "officials" were "intrigued as to why an American newspaper reporter based in Bombay would also establish a full-time residence in Karachi." Anyone familiar with the fractured relations between Pakistan and India can understand how this sort of characterization could tarnish Danny's reputation in Pakistan and weaken public outrage about his brutal killing, a goal some ISI officials might have wanted.

After Danny originally went missing, Mariane and I hunted through the house looking for clues. I found a photo on Danny's computer of us, shortly after we all met up in Pakistan. He had a particularly befuddled look on his face, and had created an appropriate caption for the photo: "Clueless in Karachi."

It turned out to be an apt description of all of us in Karachi, and of the complicated nature of relationships between Muslim extremists and their political and financial sponsors that Danny stumbled into. That is what must be explored further in order to learn who planned, financed and pulled off the kidnapping and murder of Danny. Even with the apparent admission of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the job is not done.

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