New Delhi: In Pulwama Terror attack, the Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) has claimed responsibility for Thursday’s deadly terrorist attack in Kashmir’s Pulwama district that killed at least 40 CRPF jawans. A video of the suspected terrorist Adil Ahmad Dar, a local Kashmiri youth from Kakpora, was released by the banned terror outfit after the attack.

The Jaish had also carried out the 2016 terror attack at an Indian Army camp in Uri. India responded by surgical strikes inside Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. The JeM is one of the most potent groups in Jammu and Kashmir, despite several successes against it by the Indian security forces.

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The origins of JeM

The JeM (Army of Mohammad) was founded by Masood Azhar, a known Pakistani Islamist militant leader, after he was released from an Indian prison in 1999 in exchange for over 150 hostages being held on a hijacked flight that was diverted to Kandahar, Afghanistan. The group’s official aim is to merge Kashmir with Pakistan. In Pakistan, it is reportedly affiliated to the Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam Fazlur Rehman faction. Pakistan’s ISI and the Taliban (which was then ruling Afghanistan) helped set up the JeM in the year 2000.

The cost of releasing Azhar became painfully clear to India when Jaish led the strike on Indian Parliament in December 2001. India and Pakistan nearly went to war following the attack. The US State Department designated the JeM as a foreign terrorist organisation shortly after the Parliament attack.

Ambition of JeM

Pakistani authorities arrested Azhar for his involvement in the Parliament attack. However, a court ordered his release after it said the evidence presented against him was inadequate.The JeM even tried to assassinate Pervez Musharraf, the then Pakistan president, in 2003. After keeping a somewhat low profile for nearly a decade, Azhar held a rally in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in 2014. In 2016, the terrorist group targeted the Indian military twice, attacking an airbase in Pathankot and an army base in Uri, leading to multiple casualties.The Pathankot attack came shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi reached out to the then Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif by attending his granddaughter’s wedding in Lahore.

After the Pathankot attack, that killed six people, Azhar was again detained in Pakistan. His current location within Pakistan is, however, not clear, but he is widely believed to be under the protection of Pakistan’s ISI. China has continued to block his listing on the UN sanctions list, despite multiple requests from New Delhi. In 2015, Azhar is believed to have helped establish the so-called Afzal Guru Squad, a terror front named after the convict of the Parliament attack who was executed. The JeM is also known to hold fund-raising drives in Pakistan.

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