Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has launched its first-ever women’s wing, Jamaat-ul-Mominaat.
The move was announced in a letter issued under the name of JeM chief Masood Azhar, who is a UN-designated terrorist.
The wing will be led by Azhar’s sister, Sadiya Azhar, whose husband was killed in the Operation Sindoor attack on May 7 when Indian forces targeted Markaz Subhanallah base of the organisation, WION news reported.
According to the letter circulated by JeM’s propaganda outlet Al-Qalam Media, Jamaat-ul-Mominaat will operate as the outfit’s women’s brigade.
The recruitment for the new group reportedly began on Wednesday, October 8, at Markaz Usman-o-Ali in Pakistan’s Bahawalpur.
The recruitment campaigns are allegedly focused on the outfit commanders’ wives and economically backward women studying at JeM’s centres in Bahawalpur, Karachi, Muzaffarabad, Kotli, Haripur, and Mansehra.
While traditionally the Deobandi extremist militant group had prohibited women from joining the armed organisation, the group seemed to have changed its policy after the Pahalgam attack and Operation Sindoor in allowing women to participate in combat roles.
Intelligence reports suggest the leader and his brother Talha al-Sail jointly authorised the integration of women into JeM’s operational framework, clearing the path for a new female unit formation.
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