India claims the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad, who was killed during the air raid in Pakistan

The Indian government claimed that Abdul Rauf Azhar, a leader of the Pakistan-based terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammad and a brother of the founder of the group, Masood Azhar, was killed on May 7th during India's retaliation on Pakistan.

Abdul Azhar is listed by the US government as a specially designated global terrorist, and Jaish-e-Mohammad was involved in numerous terrorist attacks in the region, including the kidnapping, murder and beheading of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl.

Abdul was allegedly killed in the strike, which aimed at a religious school in the city of Bahawalpur, which is led by Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM). The headquarters of the terrorist group is known to be based in Bahawalpur.

Masood Azhar, the Jem boss, admitted on May 7 that “10 members of his family and four close employees were killed in India's rocket attacks,” said the Deccan Herald. Masood, however, did not name his brother as one of them.

India said that there was a Pakistani-state-state terrorist and headquarters in six different cities in Pakistan and Azad Kashmir, the Pakistani region of the controversial territory of Kashmir. India started the strikes as part of the Sindhoor operation, the country's reaction to the terrorist attack of April 22nd to the area of ​​the Indian Union of Jammu and Kashmir, in which 26 tourists were killed.

Abdul was added to the US list of specially designated global terrorists in December 2010. In its name, the US Ministry of Finance found that he was “a leader” of JEM, who “asked Pakistaner to involve militant activities”. Abdul served as a high -ranking military commander in India and as a “intelligence agent” by JEM. He was commissioned to organize suicide attacks in India, was involved with Jems training camps and took part in the “political wing of the group”.

Abdul took over for a short time for his brother Masood as the overall leader of Jaish-e-Mohammad for a short time after Masood had gone underground due to the international pressure on Pakistan. Masood took over his leadership role in the same year.

Background about Jaish-e-Mohammed

The US government listed JEM as a foreign terrorist organization in December 2001. Masood Azhar, JEMS founder, was listed in November 2010 as a specially proven global terrorist for his participation in terrorist attacks and his connections to Al -Qaida and other jihadist groups.

Masood is an experienced jihadist who trained in the same religious seminar as Afghan Taliban founder and former Emir Mullah Omar. Masood was captured by the Indian government in 1994 and locked up for terrorist activities. Together with Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, he was released from an Indian prison in a flight for hostages in a flight by Indian Airlines in December 1999 in Kandahar, Afghanistan. Masood formed Jem after his release from prison.

Jem is supported by the Pakistani military and inter-services secret director because she is hostile to India and has the wages in Kashmir and Afghanistan. In its name from Masood from 2010, the US Ministry of Finance said that “JEM recruitment posters in Pakistan contained a call from Azhar for volunteers in order to join the fight in Afghanistan against western armed forces”.

Jem was stimulated together with the Lashkar-E-Taiba as behind December 13, 2001 to the Indian parliament building in Neu-Delhi, in which nine people were killed. Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, a close employee of the Azhar brothers and a Jem member, was behind the kidnapping of Wall Street Journal Reporter Daniel Pearl. Pearl was later brutally murdered and beheaded.

Jem was responsible for numerous terrorist attacks in India, including the attack on the Patankot Air Force Base in India, in which 17 soldiers were killed, and the suicide attack in February 2019 in Jammu and Kaschmir, in which 40 Police Force was killed in the Indian central reserve.

Some of the top leaders of JEM joined Al -Qaida on the Indian subcontinent, the regional department of the global group of jihadists, which was founded in September 2014 by Al Qaida Emir Ayman al Zawahiri. Despite Jems terrorist activities and close connections to global terrorist organizations, Pakistan, Pakistan did not act against the group.

Bill Roggio is Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and publisher of the Long War Journal from FDD.

Tags: India, India and Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-E-Taiba, Pakistan