Terrorist group claim to be holding missing Wall Street Journal reporter

By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK (AP) - A group claiming to have seized a Wall Street Journal reporter missing in Pakistan said he was being held in ''inhuman conditions'' comparable to those of suspected terrorists in U.S. custody, the newspaper reported yesterday.

An e-mail from "The National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty" accused reporter Daniel Pearl of being a CIA officer posing as a journalist, the Journal reported Sunday on its Web site.

The newspaper said the e-mail was accompanied by four photographs of Pearl, with one showing him with a gun to his head, and demanded better treatment for fighters being held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba.

Pearl, 38, a reporter based in Bombay, India, has been missing since Wednesday, when he went to visit a source near Karachi, Pakistan, for a story about terrorism, the newspaper said.

The Journal quoted the e-mail as saying Pearl was being held ''in very inhuman circumstances quite similar in fact to the way Pakistanis and nationals of other sovereign countries are being kept in Cuba by the American army. If the Americans keep our countrymen in better conditions, than we will better the conditions of Mr. Pearl and all other Americans that we capture.''