Police seize computer and arrest three in hunt for reporter

Police have arrested three men suspected of sending emails that contained photographs of missing US reporter, Daniel Pearl.

They have also seized the computer they are thought to have used.

Police say at least one of the men say they got the emails and photographs from Briton Sheik Omar Saeed.

A US State Department official says Pakistani police are searching for Saeed.

Police say Saeed was released in a 1999 hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane to Afghanistan.

Saeed is linked to two extremist groups - Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat ul-Mujahedeen - that the United States considers terrorist organisations. He was freed from an Indian prison on December 31, 1999, in response to demands from the Indian Airlines hijackers.

Mr Pearl, 38, the Journal's South Asia correspondent, was last seen on January 23 on his way to meet a Muslim fundamentalist contact at a Karachi restaurant.

The top government official involved in the case says authorities now know the identity of Mr Pearl's kidnappers and that he believes the reporter is still alive.

"The fact is we know who has done it and we are very close to resolving the case," Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh, in charge of police here in Sindh province, told The Associated Press. "We might conclude the whole thing very soon, sooner than you think."

He says investigators, aided by the FBI, have been working around the clock. But he refused to say who is behind the kidnapping or reveal other details. "There are questions which, if I answer, could affect the case," he said in the interview.