“As police in the Pakistani city of Karachi say they believe they are closing in on the suspected kidnappers of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist’s wife issued a fresh plea for his release,” ABC News reports.

“Pakistani police said they had made significant progress towards finding the people who abducted Pearl, who disappeared almost two weeks ago.”

‘This is an innocent man, with an innocent wife and an unborn son,’ Pearl’s wife, Marianne, said in a statement published today in Pakistan’s The Nation newspaper.

She wrote that her husband’s captors ‘are preventing a man from writing about their concerns and accomplishing his chief work: to create a bridge between cultures.’

Local police and the FBI made at least five raids on homes Tuesday, arresting three people and uncovering a key piece of evidence