Pearl book alleges Pakistani involvement in extremism

abc.net.au ^ | Tuesday, April 29, 2003. 11:52am | AEST

[Destro]

Last Update: Tuesday, April 29, 2003. 11:52am (AEST)

Pearl book alleges Pakistani involvement in extremism

Daniel Pearl, the US reporter beheaded in Karachi last year, was killed because he had discovered dangerous secrets about Pakistani involvement in Islamic extremism, according to an investigation by French philosopher and media personality Bernard-Henri Levy.

"He was the man who knew too much. His work as a journalist took him down trails which he should probably never have followed.

"Basically he was killed to stop him writing an article," said Mr Levy, author of Who killed Daniel Pearl? which has just been published in France.

Pearl, who was 38, was kidnapped in January 2002 while working on a story about Islamic militants for The Wall Street Journal.

His remains were found in May after a gruesome video showing his murder was sent to a news agency in Karachi.

In a 525-page volume Mr Levy retraces the reporter's last steps in freedom, and the trap set for him by Omar Sheikh, the British-born Islamic extremist sentenced to death in Pakistan for the murder last year, who forms the book's counter-theme.

According to Mr Levy, Sheikh was acting for the Pakistani intelligence services.

"Pearl's assassin was not a fanatic but an agent, a double-agent, of the Pakistani secret services, and also of Al Qaeda," he told Le Figaro newspaper.

The reporter, who was lured into captivity by the promise of an interview with leading Islamic militant Mubarak Gilani, may have been about to expose how close Al Qaeda was to acquiring nuclear weapons from supporters inside the Pakistani scientific establishment, according to Mr Levy.

Or he may have had information about how relatively unknown Pakistani individuals such as Gilani were in fact controlling Al Qaeda's apparent leader Osama bin Laden.

"My hypothesis is that bin Laden, this scarecrow of whom we are quite rightly afraid, is in some respects a puppet. He is there on stage but behind him are more secret, but more important, individuals who are his inspiration. That was what Pearl discovered. That was why he was killed," Levy said. Who killed Daniel Pearl? is a highly personalised account by the 54-year-old French author, who has written extensively about the conflicts in Bosnia and Afghanistan and the emergence of radical Islam as a challenge to western liberalism.

His journey takes him to California to meet Pearl's family and to London where Sheikh was educated at the respected London School of Economics, as well as to Pakistan, Bosnia and the Gulf.

"Radical Islam is as much to be feared today as the communist and fascist totalitarianisms of yesterday were," said Mr Levy.

"Everything must be done to stop a frontal collision between the west and Islam in general. The only war of civilisations must be within Islam, between the democrats and the fascists."

[Destro]

The Balkan posters knew Daniel Pearl to be an honest reporter on the wars in the Balkans who contradicted the Clinton/Muslim version of events in his reports. His deah was a great blow to those that seek the truth.

Profile of WSJ Kidnapping Suspect "Saeed went to Bosnia"

Bosnia trip radicalized Pearl slaying suspect

[Destro]

bump

[pythagorean]

Pearl was a honest guy, but Levy is not. Levy is a self-promoting, pompous, hypocritic and idiotic liberal imperialist who does not miss an opportunity to express his gratefulness to Clinton and to the humanitarian warrior industry for saving the supposedly good, multicultural, secular, "democratic" Islam of Izetbegovic and the KLA from the evil Serbs.

[Destro]

Well his book is in the "fiction" category.

[Destro]

People must be wary and realize that Levy's book - Who Killed Daniel Pearl? is a work of historical fiction: His guide into this netherworld was Pearl, whom he calls a "posthumous friend" and to whom he ascribes many of his own characteristics: "A Jew of the left, a progressive ... a friend of the uncounted, the universal orphan, the disinherited." Pearl, Lévy says, was a firm believer in the possibility of a moderate Islam, one that Lévy himself sees in a battle to the death with radical believers from al-Qaeda. He follows the journalist as he pursues a shadowy figure named Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, a former Brooklyn-based imam whom Lévy calls a "guru" of bin Laden's. He meets Pearl's contacts, spends time in the unheated, two-room hovel where Pearl was held and murdered nine days after his kidnapping. "I decided the best way to tell this story was step by step, even if that meant contradictions," he says during an interview

[jnarcus]

Oh lordy another French conspiracy theorist..They have nothing better to do with their time

[Destro]

EXACTLY!

[Cinnamon Girl]

Here it is. When will it come out in English?

[mikeIII]

Dunno when it will be out in English, but I definitely don't agree with his idea that "Radical Islam is as much to be feared today as the communist and fascist totalitarianisms of yesterday were,". I wouldn't hesitate much to engage a communist or fascist into discussion to see if he'd see my way of political thinking. Even Pearl may not have understood fully the demon dealing with.

[MeekOneGOP]

[keri]

Thanks for the ping, CG.

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[af_vet_rr]

"My hypothesis is that bin Laden, this scarecrow of whom we are quite rightly afraid, is in some respects a puppet. He is there on stage but behind him are more secret, but more important, individuals who are his inspiration. That was what Pearl discovered. That was why he was killed," Levy said

This would not suprise me. Sure bin Laden is intelligent and resourceful to pull off some of the things he has done and we should be cognizant of that (I don't think we should be afraid of him, the US of 2003 is not the US of 2001), but I feel like there is a lot more to him and Al Q than meets the eye...would love to know where all of the various money trails lead.

Call it a gut feeling, but I think there are people more dangerous than bin Laden, simply because we don't know who they are, or if we do, we don't realize just what they are doing or manipulating.

I could post my customary "the Saudis are in the middle of it" but I'll refrain ;-)

[swarthyguy]

Whatever Levy's reputation and character, doesn't mean he hasn't dug up some important info on the whole shadowy affair.

Remember Musharraf's words in DC last year, "Pearl was over-intrusive and involved in matters of intrigue" and implying that he got what was coming to him and should've stayed out. Plus, did Pearl's contacts in Pakistan burn him by ascribing an espionage connection to him?

Pearl>ISI>PakMil>Musharraf>Riyadh. All jihadi roads lead to Riyadh, the untouchables.

So much for the investigation into the financial windfalls enjoyed by some after 9/11.

And, why haven't American journalists grown a pair and done some serious digging into the L'Affaire Pearl? Why has it been left to a Frenchie to start digging.

Methinks if the Bush administration did the honorable thing and release the classified report on 9/11 it has deepsixed for 20-3o years, a lot of the dirt would be exposed to the American public. It's our information and we most certainly have a need to know.

But the urge to protect the Saudis trumps that.