Kidnapping of Daniel Pearl

Date: January 23, 2002 • Location: Karachi, Pakistan

American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and later murdered by al-Qaeda agents in Karachi, Pakistan.

Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and beheaded by jihadist militants. On January 23, 2002, while on assignment for The Wall Street Journal, Pearl was kidnapped on his way to what he had expected would be an interview with Pakistani Islamic scholar Mubarak Ali Gilani in Karachi, Pakistan. Pearl had entered Pakistan to cover the war on terror, which was launched by the United States in response to the September 11 attacks in 2001. At the time of his abduction, he had been investigating the alleged links between British citizen Richard Reid and al-Qaeda; Reid had reportedly completed his training at a facility owned by Gilani, who had been accused by the United States of being affiliated with the Pakistani terrorist organization Jamaat ul-Fuqra.