Kandahar hijack mastermind killed
Kochi: The 1999 Kandahar hijack mastermind, Abdul Rauf Azhar, 57, who was also responsible for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002, was reportedly killed in the airstrikes carried out by India on Wednesday, media reports said.
A central figure in international jihadist networks, Azhar plotted the hijacking of an Indian Airlines plane IC 814 to Kandahar to secure the release of Al -Qaeda operative Omar Saeed Sheikh who abducted and beheaded Pearl in 2002 accusing Pearl of spying for the US and seeking release of Pakistanis held by the US.
The Wall Street Journal scribe Pearl disappeared in Pakistan on January 23, 2002 when he was reportedly planning to interview a religious on Islamic extremism.
India targeted terror camps in a bid to end cross border terrorism which claimed 26 lives in a terror attack on April 22 in Pahalgam in Kashmir. The Operation Sindoor has a far-reaching impact on the global fight against terrorism.
The Kandahar hostage crisis lasted for seven days ending after India agreed to release three out of 36 jihadists.
In 2000 the jihadists formed Jaish-e-Mohammed and have since been implicated in other cases such as the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, 2002 kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, 2016 Pathankot and the 2019 Pulwama attack. Abdul Rauf Azhar was one of the most wanted person in India.

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