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Who Was Daniel Pearl? The Link Between JeM, Pakistan And The American Journalist's Death | Explained

The Indian Armed Forces carried out precision strikes on Wednesday that reportedly killed Abdul Rauf Azhar, the operational head of Jaish-e-Mohammad and mastermind of the IC-814 hijacking

Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
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The Minister of External Affairs Secretary, Vikram Misri, on Friday, stated that Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) was directly or indirectly responsible for the killing of Daniel Pearl. The statement was given to the media amid increasing tensions between India and Pakistan following April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam.

“The real connection is through Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, the British Pakistani jihadi who was held in India but was finally released in 2000. And he was the one who lured Daniel Pearl to his eventual murder. So, these are all connected figures, connected individuals, connected institutions. The attack on Bahawalpur, on that facility of JeM in Bahawalpur, is, I would say, a fitting part of this unfortunate incident,” Misri said during a media interaction.

Indian-American journalist Asra Nomani, who was Pearl라이브 바카라 colleague and friend, had similarly posted on X (formerly Twitter) that when she found out about Operation Sindhoor, and that India was attacking Bahwalpur, she knew it was attacking at the “heart of terror.”

"My friend, WSJ reporter Danny Pearl, went to Bahawalpur in December 2001 with a notebook and a pen. Gen. Pervez Musharraf had just promised he was shutting down Pakistan라이브 바카라 militant groups after a strike by Pakistan라이브 바카라 terrorists against the Parliament in India, and Danny reported on the militant offices in Bahawalpur,” she said.

Pearl had covered stories on student violence, Iranian pop music for The Wall Street Journal, before pivoting to international affairs. He is most noted for his reportage on the ethnic wars in the Balkans.

Pearl and his wife relocated to Mumbai, India, when the WSJ appointed him the Chief of its Southeast Asia Bureau. From there, he frequently travelled to Karachi, Pakistan, which served as a reporting base to cover the United States' war on terror following the 9/11 attacks by Al-Qaeda.

On January 23, 2002, Pearl was on his way to what he believed would be an interview with Sheikh Mubarak Ali Gilani at the Village Restaurant in downtown Karachi. He intended to investigate alleged connections between Gilani and terrorist Richard Reid. However, Pearl was abducted near the Metropole Hotel at around 7:00 p.m. by a coalition of Islamist jihadist groups.

Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, affiliated with Harkat-ul-Ansar (later known as Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and Jaish-e-Mohammed), confessed to orchestrating the kidnapping but denied participating in the murder. The execution video—showing Pearl라이브 바카라 beheading—was released by Jaish-e-Mohammed under the alias "National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty," a name also used in ransom communications. Jaish member Amjad Farooqi was also reportedly involved.

According to a 2011 investigative report by the Centre for Public Integrity and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists led by Pearl라이브 바카라 friend and fellow journalist Asra Nomani several other Pakistani extremist groups, including Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, participated in the crime. These groups operated under the umbrella of Lashkar-e-Omar. High-ranking Al-Qaeda leaders were also implicated, with Saif al-Adel helping plan the abduction and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed identified as Pearl라이브 바카라 actual killer. Pearl was held and executed in an Al-Qaeda safe house in Karachi, owned by Pakistani businessman Saud Memon. Another Al-Qaeda operative, Matiur Rehman, was also linked to the case.

Four days after the abduction, Pearl's captors sent an email with photos of him in chains, a gun pointed at his head. The email demanded the release of Pakistani prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, threatening to kill Pearl if their demands were not met.

A videotape later recovered by investigators confirmed that Pearl had been executed within four weeks of his kidnapping. His final, haunting words, spoken on camera, were: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”

The Indian Armed Forces carried out precision strikes on Wednesday that reportedly killed Abdul Rauf Azhar, the operational head of Jaish-e-Mohammad and mastermind of the IC-814 hijacking.

Azhar was also involved in the 2002 kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl. The strikes targeted nine terror hubs in PoK and Pakistan, with the operation seen as delivering justice in the case of Pearl라이브 바카라 death. Azhar라이브 바카라 involvement in the 1999 Kandahar hijacking led to the release of Omar Saeed Sheikh, who later kidnapped and murdered Daniel Pearl.

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