Deadline to kill captive reporter extended a day

The group's e-mails have contained pictures of Pearl, some of which show a gun pointed at his head

KARACHI, Pakistan (CNN) -- A group claiming to be the kidnappers of a U.S. journalist in Pakistan said it would extend the deadline to kill him to Friday -- thus giving him a day's reprieve.

Writers claiming to be holding Daniel Pearl sent an unsigned e-mail to Pakistani and Western media. They said they would wait another day for their demands -- to release Pakistanis held by the United States in the war on terror -- to be met before killing the Wall Street Journal reporter.

The kidnappers had on Wednesday threatened to kill him in 24 hours, which would have expired today, if those demands weren't met.

The e-mail has been verified to be "real," a senior Bush administration official said. "The intelligence assessment is -- it is from the kidnappers who sent the first one," the official said. A spokesman for the reporter's newspaper said that it is "moving along on the assumption that it is legit."

The group, which calls itself The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, has also warned other American reporters to leave Pakistan within three days, which would be Saturday.

VIDEO Daniel Pearl's employer, The Wall Street Journal, sent a new plea to the group that is holding the journalist in Pakistan. CNN's Andrea Koppel reports (February 1) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media) Marianne Pearl, wife of kidnapped Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, talks to CNN's Ben Wedeman (January 30) Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)   MORE STORIES Boxing legend Ali urges 'compassion'     Kidnappers' demands: - Release of all Pakistanis in U.S. custody as a result of war in Afghanistan - More access to lawyers and families for Pakistanis taken into custody in the United States after September 11 - Release of Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan - Transfer of U.S.-built F-16s, held up after Islamabad's May 1998 nuclear tests, to Pakistan

The administration official said that "there is a heightened sense of frustration" over the matter. "It is not like there is something reasonable to negotiate here. We just have to hope they realize there is no purpose, no benefit to what they are doing."

Secretary of State Colin Powell said Thursday that the kidnappers' demands "are not demands that we can meet or deal with or get into negotiations about."

"With respect to Mr. Pearl, we're deeply concerned for his safety," the secretary said. "We're doing everything we can to try to locate him and rescue him."

Powell added that he had spoken with Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, "and I know that he's doing everything he can."

The developments came as the Wall Street Journal made an impassioned plea Thursday to the kidnappers, asking them not to kill Pearl but view him as a "messenger" for their political views.

Pearl went missing in Karachi, Pakistan, last week and is being held by captors calling themselves "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty." He was in Pakistan researching a story on Richard Reid, the man suspected of trying to set off explosives hidden in his shoes while aboard an airplane.

Meanwhile, a man who is thought to have helped arrange an interview for Pearl with the religious leader of a fundamentalist Muslim group is dead, the inspector general of the Karachi police said Thursday.

Inspector General Syed Kamal Shah identified the man only as "Arif" and said he died Wednesday. Police don't know how he died or if it was connected to the kidnapping.

Pearl was abducted while on his way to that interview, which he believed was to be with Sheikh Mubarik ali Gilani, the head of Jamaat ul-Fuqra group, about Reid, the shoe bombing suspect now in jail in the United States.

A spokesman for Gilani's group denied any involvement in the kidnapping, and a friend of the sheikh, Khalid Khwaja, told CNN no arrangements had ever been made with Pearl, and there are no connections between the kidnappers and Gilani, nor any with Reid. Nonetheless, Gilani turned himself in to police Wednesday.

Pakistani police announced Thursday they have taken three additional men into custody after tracing their cell phone calls. The police said nothing further about progress in the case.

In his appeal for Pearl's release, Steiger, Wall Street Journal managing editor, wrote: "Killing Danny will achieve nothing for you. His murder would be condemned by the entire world, and your group would be viewed as murderers without serious political objectives.

Steiger asked the group to "view Danny as a messenger," giving him a list of issues and grievances and allowing Pearl to make them public.

Steiger appealed to the group to consider the pleas of Pearl's wife, Marianne, who is six months pregnant with the couple's first child. She told CNN Wednesday the kidnappers should opt for dialogue, not violence..

Steiger's statement was sent to international media outlets in hopes of making it public because the kidnapper's e-mail address, printed in newspaper reports when the story first emerged, has been swamped with incoming messages and rendered inaccessible.