Himanshu

On Jan. 2, 2002, Wall Street Journal Danny Pearl wrote a headline that could be published today: “Militant groups in Pakistan thrive despite crackdown.” India has announced important news: its air strike in Bahawalpur killed Abdul Rauf Azhar, the mastermind of the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814 in 1999 that led to the freeing of his terrorist brother, Masood Azhar, and the kidnapper Omar Sheikh who went on to kidnap Danny Pearl. According to my years of reporting on Danny’s murder for the @DPearlProject. Abdul Rauf Azhar was not directly invoked in Danny’s kidnapping and murder but he was very important because he freed Omar Sheikh who went on to kidnap Danny. I am going to share with you the actual police documents from Danny’s case, so you can see how other militants from Bahawalpur were involved in Danny’s case. Danny’s prescient article documented about Pakistan’s domestic terrorism industry. 🔴 Danny knew the importance of the freeing of the men from India’s jails in exchange for the Indian Airlines passengers. He talks about Masood Azhar. 🔴 Danny wrote that "posters praising holy war still hung inside” militant offices in Bahawalpur, a magazine urging readers to support “warriors of Islam.” 🔴 Danny walked across dirt roads in Bahawalpur to find Masood Azhar’s Jaish-e-Muhammad office where it was recruitment day. Danny could have written this article today to help people understand Pakistan and its militancy problem today. @Yudapearl, a special note to you: Danny sent his dear mother, Ruth Pearl, his article and cautioned her: "Don’t freak out too much about my story in today’s paper." I typed up every word from an old scan of the article so the world can read Danny’s reporting genius. I’ll post it in this thread, @AartiTikoo and all. 🔴 Omar Sheikh organized Danny’s kidnapping. A total of at least 27 Pakistani militants were involved in the plot, many foot soldiers from Masood Azhar’s Jihad Inc. network. 🔴 Only 4 men were convicted in the courts and essentially freed in 2020 by the courts despite our judicial efforts to keep them in jail. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who organized the 9/11 attack, allegedly beheaded Danny and he is in Guantanamo.

“Bahawalpur.” I still have chills in my heart from when I first heard that town’s name in late January 2002. For the 23 years since, I have reported on how Pakistani intelligence and military leaders have used that city — Bahawalpur — in the southern province of Punjab as a base for its homegrown domestic terrorists. When I heard India bombed training camps in Pakistan this week in Operation Sindoor, in response to a Pakistani terrorist rampage in India’s Kashmir state, I had one city’s name on my lips: Bahawalpur. Did India bomb Bahawalpur? It did. I knew then India was striking actual hubs for Pakistan’s homegrown domestic terrorism. Why do I know? 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 Pakistan’s militant groups after a strike by Pakistan’s terrorists against the Parliament in India, and Danny reported on the militant offices in Bahawalpur. He literally knocked on their doors. Dear Dr. @yudapearl, this story is a window into Danny’s reporting enterprise. And because people will wonder: Danny was no cowboy. This was a calculated low-risk reporting trip because no journalist had been targeted for kidnapping in Pakistan. Around that time, Danny sent me an email: “I’m anxious to go to Afghanistan, but I’m not anxious to die.” What did Danny learn? The militant training camps were open for business in Bahawalpur. On Jan. 23, 2002, Danny left a home I had rented in Karachi, Pakistan, for an interview. I learned Danny’s fixer, Asif Farooqi, had arranged an interview for Danny through a man named “Arif.” Danny didn’t know it but Arif was the PR man for a militant group, Harkutul Mujahadeen. What was Arif’s hometown? Bahawalpur. The police launched a manhunt to find Arif in Bahawalpur. We learned Arif’s family faked a funeral for Arif. Police found him trying to board a bus in Muzaffarabad, across the country by Pakistan’s border with Kashmir. It is another town India said it bombed terrorist training facilities. Arif had handed Danny off to Omar Sheikh,a British-Pakistani dropout from the London School of Economics, radicalized in the 1990s in London mosques. He went to Pakistan to train in these militant training camps. Then he kidnapped tourists in India. He was caught and jailed but on Dec. 31, 1999, he was traded for hostages in the hijacking of Indian Airlines Flight 814. Omar Sheikh was freed with Pakistani terrorist leader Masood Azhar, whose family was allegedly killed this week by India’s air strike in Bahawalpur. Did Pakistan jail Omar Sheikh and Masood Azhar when they returned to Pakistan with a third terrorist, freed from India’s jails? No. Pakistan’s military and intelligence gave them safe passage. They used them as weapons against India. But in fact these domestic terrorists have waged war against innocents in Pakistan, like civil society activists, Benazir Bhutto, Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, schoolchildren and countless others. Their extremism has ruined Pakistan, and Pakistanis can’t blame America for creating the mujahideen to fight the Soviets in the 1980s. Pakistan has had a duty to dismantle those terrorist bases — for even the safety of its own people. What India is doing is a strategic attack on terrorist bases Pakistani military and intelligence should have eliminated but never did in their obsession to take over Kashmir. You will see parallels in the propaganda messages against India and Israel. Like Hamas, Pakistani terrorists crossed a border to kill. Now, Pakistani propagandists call themselves victims of their “fascist” “colonizer” neighbor. It’s the Reverse Uno strategy of moral inversion, just like @stoolpresidente got from the Temple student who won’t take responsibility for promoting the “HATE THE JEWS” sign. Don’t fall for it. Nations, communities and people must own up to their extremism, from Bahawalpur to beyond.