Pakistani police say the hunt for the kidnappers of U.S. reporter Daniel Pearl has shifted to the eastern city of Lahore, amid signals the prime suspect has fled there from the southern port city of Karachi.

The Karachi police chief says investigators are hoping to track down British-born Islamic militant Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the man suspected of masterminding the kidnapping. The chief says officials hope he would lead them to Mr. Pearl.

Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl vanished in Karachi on January 23rd as he tried to make contact with the leader of a radical Islamic group. Before disappearing, he had been working on a story about alleged shoe bomber Richard Reid and possible links he may have had to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

Police say they think Mr. Pearl is still alive and somewhere in Karachi, simply because it would be risky to move him around the country. But their investigation indicates that Sheikh Omar has moved.

The last e-mails from the abductors said they would kill Mr. Pearl by February 1st unless the United States released a Taleban diplomat and Pakistanis captured in Afghanistan. U.S. officials have refused to negotiate.

(REUTERS,AFP,Islamabad phoner)

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