Masood Azhar’s brother eliminated in Bahawalpur strike
From the Parliament attack to the beheading of American-Jewish journalist Daniel Pearl, India has reportedly avenged all with its latest military action, Operation Sindoor, in Pakistan.
The operation has resulted in a major success, as Masood Azhar’s brother and Jaish-e-Mohammad’s operational head, Rauf Asghar Alvi, alias Mufti Abdul Rauf Asghar, was among the terrorists eliminated during the military strike on JeM’s terror camp in Bahawalpur, top intelligence sources confirmed to The Tribune.
Rauf, one of India’s most wanted terrorists, was the mastermind behind the IC-814 hijacking in December 1999, which directly facilitated the release of JeM founder and chief Masood Azhar and Omar Saeed Sheikh, a key Al-Qaeda operative who later kidnapped and murdered Pearl.
He remained involved in a series of terror activities that claimed numerous lives in India. The investigation into the recent Pahalgam attack in which 26 civilians were shot has led authorities to believe that the arms and ammunition used by the terrorists at the Baisaran valley were most likely procured by Rauf.
According to security agencies, Rauf was also the key coordinator of the 2001 Parliament attack, which killed nine people and brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.
Investigators have found Rauf’s direct links to the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack and, later that year, the Uri attack in which 19 Indian Army soldiers were killed. He was also believed to have overseen the planning of the Pulwama attack in 2019, which killed 40 CRPF personnel.
The Indian strikes under Operation Sindoor reportedly killed 10 members of Masood Azhar’s family in Bahawalpur, including his sister and brother-in-law. Although JeM released a statement following the strike, it did not mention Rauf Azhar by name.
Bahawalpur, Pakistan’s 12th largest city, is considered by security agencies to be the hub of JeM, the terror group responsible for several attacks in India. Located nearly 400 km from Lahore, the city houses JeM’s operational headquarters at the Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah, also known as the Usman-o-Ali campus.
Markaz Subhan Allah has been operational since 2015 and is reportedly used for training and radicalisation. The facility includes a central mosque, a madrasa for over 600 students, a swimming pool and a gymnasium.
Meanwhile, Pearl’s former colleague Asra Nomani shared a detailed post on social media, describing how Pakistan has for several decades provided safe haven to JeM and allowed it to use the southern province of Punjab as a base for its homegrown terrorists.
India