Jaish-e-Mohammed | |
---|---|
جيش محمد | |
The flag of Jaish-e-Mohammed
|
|
Leaders | Masood Azhar |
Dates of operation | 2000–present |
Ideology | Islamic fundamentalism |
Headquarters | Bahawalpur, Punjab, Pakistan |
Designated as a terrorist group by | |
Australia, Canada, India, the UAE, the UK, the US and the UN |
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Urdu: جيش محمد, literally "The Army of Muhammad", abbreviated as JeM) is a Deobandijihadist group active in Kashmir. The group's primary motive is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it into Pakistan. It has carried out several attacks primarily in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. It also maintained close relations with Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to be allied to them.
It has been banned in Pakistan since 2002. It has reportedly resurfaced under other names. It continues to openly operate several facilities in the country.
According to B. Raman, Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed as the "deadliest" and "the principal terrorist organisation in Jammu and Kashmir". The group has been designated as a terrorist organisation by Pakistan, Australia, Canada, India, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and the United Nations.
In 2016, Jaish was suspected of being responsible for an attack on the Pathankot airbase in India. The Indian government, and some other sources, accused Pakistan of assisting Jaish in conducting the attack. Pakistan denied assisting Jaish, and arrested several members of Jaish in connection with the attack, who were then released by the security establishment according to a report in Dawn. Pakistan called the report a "fabrication".
Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is said to have created Jaish-e-Mohammed by working with several Deobandi terrorists associated with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen. By the late 1990s, states Ahmed Rashid, the Pakistani military justified jihad in Kashmir as a legitimate part of its foreign policy. Harkat had been set up in mid-1990s with ISI support to carry out "spectacular acts of terrorism". The United States declared it a terrorist group in 1998 and bombed its training camps in Afghanistan.