India Kills Pakistani Terrorist Behind American Jewish Journalist Daniel Pearl’s Murder

The Indian government announced on Thursday that its military has killed Pakistani terrorist Abdul Rauf Azhar, one of the key figures involved in the 2002 murder of Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl.

Azhar was targeted in a special military operation named “Operation Sindhoor,” launched by Indian forces earlier this week. Azhar was affiliated with the terrorist groups Jaish-e-Mohammed and al-Qaeda.

“Operation Sindhoor” was carried out following the recent killing of 26 Hindu pilgrims by Pakistani terrorists in Kashmir. The Indian Army described the operation as a strike against terrorist infrastructure in the region.

A Long Trail of Terror

Abdul Rauf Azhar had been linked to multiple high-profile terrorist incidents, including the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines flight IC-814, the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, and the 2016 attack on the Pathankot Air Force base.

The 1999 hijacking led to the release of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, another key figure involved in Daniel Pearl’s murder. Sheikh, a British-born al-Qaeda member, was also known to have ties to Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Who Was Daniel Pearl?

Daniel Pearl was the South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. Based in New Delhi, he had moved to Karachi, Pakistan, in 2002 to investigate links between terrorism and intelligence networks after the 9/11 attacks.

On January 23, 2002, Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi by a group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. They accused him of being an Israeli spy and sent the U.S. government a list of demands. When the demands were not met, Pearl was murdered, and the gruesome killing was recorded on video.

In the video, Pearl said:

“My father's Jewish, my mother's Jewish, I'm Jewish. My family follows Judaism. Back in the town of Bnei Brak, there is a street named after my great grandfather, Chaim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town.”

Pearl's killing shocked the world and became a symbol of the growing threat of Islamist extremism in the post-9/11 world.