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On his release, Azhar announced the formation of
JAISH-E-MOHAMMED the Jaish-e-Mohammed and organized recruitment
drives throughout Pakistan. About three-quarters of
the members of Harakat ul-Mujahidin joined the new
Jaish-e-Mohammed (Mohammed’s Army; JEM) is group. The Harakat ul-Mujahidin and JEM are now
a militant Islamist group based in Pakistan. JEM was thought to be at war with each other. JEM is based pri-
founded in the late 1990s by Maulana Masood Azhar, marily in Peshawar and Muzaffarabad, Pakistan, but
a former leader of the ultra-fundamentalist Islamist members are active primarily in Kashmir. Until the
group Harakat ul-Mujahidin. United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, JEM also
Azhar was active in the Harakat ul-Mujahidin maintained training camps in that country and was
throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He spent time train- heavily supported by the Taliban and pro-Taliban
ing with Al Qaeda and fighting in Afghanistan during groups in Pakistan.
the Soviet occupation and organized groups that In July 2000, JEM launched a rocket grenade
fought alongside Al Qaeda against U.S. troops in attack on the chief minister of Kashmir at his office in
Somalia and Yemen. Srinagar. In December 2000, JEM militants threw
The main aim of Harakat ul-Mujahidin, however, grenades at a bus stop in Kupwara, India, injuring 24,
was to reunite Kashmir with Pakistan, and the group and at a marketplace in Chadoura, India, injuring 16.
was responsible for numerous attacks on Hindus and JEM militants also planted two bombs that killed
Indian Army troops in Kashmir. Pakistan’s intelligence 21 people in Qamarwari and Srinagar.
service is believed to have supported both Harakat JEM was responsible for the October 1, 2001, sui-
ul-Mujahidin and other terrorist groups in their opera- cide bomb attack on the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly
tions in Kashmir. Azhar was arrested by Indian author- in Srinagar that left 31 people dead, including members
ities in 1994 in connection with several attacks and of the Indian Parliament. On October 11, 2001, Britain,
held in a Jammu jail. Pakistan, and the United States froze JEM’s assets. The
Azhar’s supporters made several attempts to free next day, JEM announced that it had renamed itself
him, including the 1994 kidnappings of U.S. and Tehrik-al-Firquan, and moved all of its assets into new
British nationals in New Delhi and the July 1995 kid- accounts. Azhar remained in charge of the new organi-
nappings of Westerners in Kashmir. In 1999, members zation, which declared “the opening of jihad against the
of Harakat ul-Mujahidin hijacked an Indian Airlines United States.”
jet and flew the plane to Afghanistan. They demanded With the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, Pakistani
the release of Azhar in exchange for the 155 passen- government support for JEM and other extremist
gers and crew. The Indian government agreed to groups seemed to have evaporated. Declaring the
their demands and flew Azhar to Afghanistan; all the Pakistani government to be in thrall to the West, JEM
hostages were then freed and returned to India. then turned against the government of Pakistan.

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