In a significant counterterrorism operation, the Indian government announced the death of Abdul Rauf Azhar, a top Pakistani terrorist involved in the 2002 abduction and murder of Jewish-American journalist Daniel Pearl. Azhar, a senior commander of the terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) and brother of its chief Masood Azhar, was killed in “Operation Sindoor,” a precision strike launched by the Indian Air Force on May 7 targeting terror camps across Pakistan.
Operation Sindoor was initiated in retaliation for the recent killing of 26 Hindu pilgrims in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, in a terrorist attack believed to have been orchestrated by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and JeM—two Pakistan-based groups long linked to deadly attacks in India and the murder of Daniel Pearl.
Daniel Pearl, then South Asia bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal, was based in New Delhi but had traveled to Karachi, Pakistan, in early 2002 to investigate connections between Islamist terror networks and Pakistani intelligence services. On January 23, 2002, he was kidnapped by a group calling itself the National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty. Accused of being an Israeli spy due to his Jewish heritage, Pearl was brutally executed on camera after the U.S. government refused to meet his captors’ demands.
In the disturbing video, Pearl affirmed his Jewish identity, stating:
“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.”
Abdul Rauf Azhar played a critical role in the 1999 hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight IC-814, which resulted in the release of British-born terrorist Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. Sheikh was later convicted of masterminding Pearl’s abduction and murder. The same Bahawalpur-based JeM network, destroyed during Operation Sindoor, had provided support for both the hijacking and Pearl’s killing.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) praised the operation as a “long-overdue justice” for Pearl and a decisive blow to Pakistan-based terror infrastructure. Nine terror facilities, including a major camp in Bahawalpur, were targeted in the operation.
While Pakistan’s officials attended the funerals that clearly exhibited Pakistan’s link with terrorists and their leaders.
Indian-American journalist Asra Nomani, a former colleague of Pearl, welcomed the strike and shared on social media that the destruction of the Bahawalpur camp felt like a long-awaited reckoning for her friend’s murder.
