Lahore: Eight months after India’s Operation Sindoor successfully targeted nine terror facilities in Pakistan and PoK, Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has released a message meant to convey that it is very much alive and kicking.
The Pakistan-based terror outfit released a message, purportedly in the voice of its chief Maulana Masood Azhar. In the audio clip,
Masood claims that Jaish has “thousands” of suicide bombers ready to carry out attacks.
The exact date and authenticity of the audio message, which has surfaced on social media platforms, could not be verified.
The speaker can be heard boasting of the massive strength of Jaish, saying that they are not “one, two, or a hundred, not even a thousand,” and adding that if the actual number is revealed, it would cause an uproar in global media.
Masood, who lost several of his close relatives in the missile strikes carried out by Indian forces at Jaish’s Bahawalpur headquarters in the early hours of May 7 last year, elaborates that these recruits do not seek material rewards, visas, or personal gains, and only ask for “shahadat” (martyrdom).
Jaish acknowledged the losses in September when a senior commander of the terror outfit admitted in a video that members of Masood’s family were killed during Operation Sindoor, which was India’s response to the deadly Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 innocent men on April 22.
Masood Azhar, who has not been seen publicly since 2019, is a UN-designated terrorist. He is the mastermind behind some of the deadliest attacks in India, including the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack and 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing that killed 44 CRPF personnel.
According to intelligence inputs, Masood may be operating far from Bahawalpur in recent months and planning revenge for Operation Sindoor.
