Daniel Pearl was the South Asian bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, reporting from the Middle East. It was not a friendly place for any Westerner, let alone the son of Jewish Israeli immigrants to the U.S. That combination sealed his fate when he put the word out among Islamist circles that he wanted to interview the reclusive radical cleric Sheik Mubarak Ali Shah Gilani, who was thought to be the mentor of the Underwear Bomber, Richard Reid. The man who answered Pearl had no intention of leading him to Gilani – he wanted to use the journalist to “strike a blow” against the U.S.

On this day, January 23, in 2002, Daniel Pearl headed out to a Karachi, Pakistan restaurant to what he thought would be an interview with Gilani. He was met just before sundown by a couple militants in the car, who picked him up and took him to a safehouse on the outskirts of the city. There, they finally revealed to Pearl the awful truth.

There are debates as to the kidnappers’ exact intentions, whether they wanted to kill Pearl from the start or not. Some argue that it was only the pictures of mistreated prisoners from Guantanamo Bay that came out around the time of Pearl’s captivity that swayed the militants’ minds. Whatever the case, the kidnappers issued a ransom demand for Pearl, in exchange for the freeing of all Pakistani terror detainees and the resumption of a halted shipment of F-16 fighters to the Pakistani army. They gave 24 hours for their terms to be met. Nine days later Daniel Pearl was murdered.