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KARACHI, Feb 4 (AFP) - Pakistani police identified a missing Muslim militant, Mohammad Hashim Qadeer, as a crucial link in the kidnapping of US journalist Daniel Pearl as their search for the reporter intensified Monday.

"He is the main link and his arrest can lead to a major breakthrough," a senior officer involved in the investigation told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Authorities believe Pearl, 38, is still alive somewhere in the southern port city of Karachi where he disappeared 12 days ago, although the investigation has spread nationwide.

"The search is still on. I am very hopeful that the case will be resolved soon," Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider told reporters.

A body dumped on a roadside here overnight was initially reported by US media to be his, but a Karachi-based US consular official and an editor from Pearl's newspaper said after seeing the body that it was not Pearl.

The Wall Street Journal reporter was using Qadeer, better known as Arif, as a contact point to meet other Islamic militants in Pakistan before he disappeared, the senior investigating officer said.

Pearl was last seen heading off to meet Arif on the understanding that he would bring him to Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, leader of the little known militant Muslim group Tanzeem-ul-Fuqra, the officer said.

"Investigations have shown Arif was acting as a go-between for Pearl and Gilani," the officer told AFP.

Police have dismissed claims by Arif's family that he died recently in Afghanistan.

When they visited Arif's home in southern Bahawalpur district last week they found the family conducting prayers for the dead but there was no sign of a body.

"We have no confirmation that he has been killed," the assistant police superintendent in Bahawalpur, Khurran Shakoor, told AFP Monday.

Arif is known to have had a long association with Harkatul Mujahedin, a militant group whose accounts have been frozen and offices sealed in Pakistan after being branded a terrorist organisation by the US last October.

"Arif is the main link which can lead us to unearth the mystery and lead to the group which is claiming responsibility," the investigating officer said.

He added that it appeared Gilani, who has denied any connection with the kidnapping, was "used as a bait to trap the American journalist. Unwittingly he (Pearl) played into the hands of the kidnappers."

He said police continued to believe Pearl was still alive as the kidnappers' demands had not been met, and nothing has been heard from them since they extended the death-threat deadline last Thursday.

"It seems that he is being held somewhere in Karachi," the officer said.

A previously unheard-of group, calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty, sent two e-mails last week with photos of Pearl in captivity, threatening to kill him by Thursday. The deadline was later extended to Friday.

Investigators are treating the group as Pearl's "real kidnappers" because their e-mails have contained photos of the reporter, Karachi police chief Tariq Jamil told AFP.

But they are concerned at the group's silence since the last photo of Pearl was sent by e-mail on Wednesday.

"It is a big concern for us as they have not sent any fresh message, but in high-profile kidnappings sometimes the kidnappers take time," Jamil said.

Investigators meanwhile have fanned out beyond Karachi to the interior of Sindh province, Baluchistan province in the west, Punjab province in the east and the border town of Peshawar in North West Frontier Province, Jamil said.

The captors had demanded the release of Pakistanis among prisoners held at the US naval base in Cuba. However the United States has ruled out negotiations.

The Journal reaffirmed its belief that their correspondent had not been killed.

"We can confirm that the body was not Danny. We stand by (managing editor) Paul Steiger's statement of (Saturday) and continue to believe that Danny is still alive," said a statement issued in New York overnight.

The paper had earlier appealed to Pearl's captors to provide photographic proof that he is still alive. 

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