Assessing the Strategic Threat Posed by #Jaish-e-Mohammed's Female Cadre (Jamat-ul-Muminat) and India's Comprehensive Counter-Strategy-Part 1

 https://www.newsbharati.com/Encyc/2025/11/15/jaish-e-mohammed-female.html

Jaish-e-Mohammed views Kashmir not as an isolated conflict zone, but as a "gateway" to the entire Indian subcontinent, whose Muslim population it portrays as being in need of ideological liberation.

 

Part 1. Strategic Overview: The Post-Sindoor Pivot

Introduction JeM Threat Landscape

The Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) is a primary and persistent threat to the security and territorial integrity of India, designated as a terrorist group by the United Nations and numerous nations including the United States and the United Kingdom. Operating as a Deobandi Islamist-jihadist militant organization headquartered in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, JeM was founded in 2000 by Maulana Masood Azhar. The group’s central objective is the forced separation of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) from India and its integration into Pakistan. 

 

 

JeM views Kashmir not as an isolated conflict zone, but as a "gateway" to the entire Indian subcontinent, whose Muslim population it portrays as being in need of ideological liberation. Despite being officially banned by the Pakistani government in 2002, the organization has consistently demonstrated extreme resilience and state-ally support, allowing it to continue functioning under various front names, such as Khuddam ul-Islam. JeM’s history is marked by spectacular acts of violence on Indian soil, including the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, the 2016 Pathankot attack, and the devastating 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing.

The Impact of Operation Sindoor (May 2025) and Organizational Imperatives

The recent decision by JeM to mobilize a formal female cadre is a direct consequence of the severe operational and leadership crises the organization encountered in 2025. This crisis was triggered by India’s military campaign, Operation Sindoor, launched on May 7, 2025, in direct retaliation for the April 22, 2025 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, J&K, which claimed 26 civilian lives. The strikes targeted the infrastructure and militant facilities of both JeM and its affiliate, Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), inside Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PoK).

Operation Sindoor inflicted critical personnel damage at the apex of the JeM command structure. Following the strikes, Masood Azhar released a statement reportedly admitting that 10 of his immediate family members were killed.

Crucially, senior members, including Azhar’s brothers-in-law, Mohammad Yusuf Azhar and Hafiz Muhammed Jameel, were reportedly eliminated during the operation. The substantial loss of highly trusted, high-ranking male commanders necessitated a profound organizational adaptation driven by survival. JeM responded by relocating terror training camps from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the hinterland regions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, seeking increased operational resilience.

Simultaneously, the formation of the female wing, Jamat-ul-Muminat (JUM), emerged shortly thereafter. This move was not merely an expansion, but a mechanism to institutionalize leadership continuity. The elevation of trusted, blood-related female members to key command roles ensures doctrinal fidelity and maintains control within the Azhar family structure, which is paramount for a personality-driven terrorist organization facing external pressure and potential internal factionalism.

Rationale for the Jamat-ul-Muminat (JUM) Formation

Jamat-ul-Muminat is JeM's recently formalized female brigade, publicly announced through digital platforms for the explicit purpose of recruitment and fundraising. The wing is headed by Sadiya Azhar, who holds a vital position as Masood Azhar’s sister and is the widow of the late commander Mohammad Yusuf Azhar, who was killed in the 2025 conflict. Other senior female relatives, including Azhar's sister Safia and Afreera Farooq, the wife of the Pulwama attack conspirator Umar Farooq, comprise the leadership council.

 

The rationale behind JUM’s formation is multifaceted and centered on enhancing operational capability and financial sustainability. 

Firstly, JeM utilizes female operatives to circumvent the intensive security scrutiny focused on its male cadre, which increased significantly following Operation Sindoor. 

Secondly, JUM is designed to leverage modern digital infrastructure to expand JeM's recruitment capacity. The online program, 'Tufat al-Muminat', enables the organization to bypass restrictive social norms that historically limited women's physical movement and participation in conservative South Asian society. Finally, the JUM serves as a covert financial conduit. 

The requirement for participants in the online course to pay a fee of ₹500 immediately introduces a low-profile fundraising stream, helping JeM maintain financial liquidity despite international sanctions and scrutiny regarding compliance with Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards. 

Table I summarizes the direct link between India’s tactical action and JeM’s strategic adaptation.

Sindoor adaptation — pre (Pre-May 2025) vs post (Late 2025) and strategic significance
Event / Metric	Pre-Sindoor State (Pre-May 2025)	Post-Sindoor Adaptation (Late 2025)	Strategic Significance of Shift
Leadership profile	Male-dominated command; Azhar family members served as active commanders.	Institutionalizing leadership continuity through trusted female relatives (e.g., Sadiya Azhar).11	Maintains command continuity while reducing exposure of male leaders to targeting; signals role diversification and reliance on kinship networks for resilience.
Operational infrastructure	Camps primarily located in Pakistan-administered Kashmir (PoK).	Camps moved into Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan hinterland regions.10	Increases operational resilience by diversifying training locations away from the Line of Control (LoC); complicates detection and interdiction by shifting to less monitored hinterlands.
Recruitment method	Traditional grassroots recruitment via physical mosque and madrassa networks.	Shift to an online recruitment platform ('Tufat al-Muminat') enabling remote outreach.11	Bypasses movement and assembly restrictions; broadens reach to diverse demographics across India (e.g., Uttar Pradesh, South India), and makes tracking recruitment patterns harder.15

 

 

II. Ideological and Organizational Shift: JeM's Use of Women Cadres 

JeM’s Deobandi Ideological Constraints and Pre-2025 Women's Roles

JeM operates under a Deobandi Islamist-jihadist doctrine, which, historically, adheres to restrictive interpretations of women’s public roles. Before the emergence of JUM, groups like JeM and its affiliate LeT primarily constrained women’s functions to the domestic sphere, utilizing them as mothers, wives, and educators who reinforce the ideology internally, but strictly prohibiting them from direct combat or suicide missions. Consequently, the traditional roles of women were purely supportive, focusing on essential organizational maintenance. These roles included managing group finances, engaging in subtle fundraising efforts, maintaining membership loyalty, and performing familial indoctrination to ensure the continuity of the extremist identity across generations. 

The formation of JUM, and its recruitment drive for 'fruit soldiers'—a term synonymous with female suicide bombers —represents a major pragmatic shift away from strict doctrinal supremacy. This operational pivot suggests that the existential threats faced by JeM post-Operation Sindoor have made the tactical advantages offered by female combatants indispensable. The necessity for high-impact, successful operations now supersedes previous theological constraints against women engaging in violence. When a terror group suffers devastating command losses, as JeM did, operational imperatives often dictate a rapid ideological justification for new, shock-value tactics. This move validates the use of female operatives in combat roles, effectively weaponizing martyrdom culture for women as a necessary sacrifice for the preservation of the organization.

The Mandate and Leadership of JUM

The JUM’s mandate is dual: internal consolidation and external expansion, often through methods of psychological warfare. The emphasis on family control through Sadiya Azhar's leadership is strategic; it ensures unwavering internal loyalty and mitigates the risk of factional splintering, which commonly occurs when key male commanders are killed or captured.

Organizationally, JUM is designed to be a resilient, digitally supported structure. Beyond its recruitment function, the online course structure functions as a reliable financial mechanism. By framing the fundraising as a fee for educational material ('Tufat al-Muminat'), JeM attempts to obscure its financial activities from international regulators, ensuring a constant flow of funds necessary for sustaining the broader terror network.

The New Recruitment Ecosystem: Digital Radicalization and Targeted Demographics

 The JUM initiative utilizes a highly modernized recruitment strategy that exploits digital spaces to overcome physical limitations and cultural constraints, facilitating a geographically diverse intake of new operatives. The online course, commencing in November, offers daily, structured sessions aimed at systematic indoctrination.

The digital approach targets three distinct, highly valuable demographics:

Affiliated Network: Wives and female relatives of current and deceased JeM commanders, providing ideological reinforcement and network loyalty. 

Vulnerable Population: Economically vulnerable women who may be swayed by financial incentives or the promise of belonging. 

High-Utility Operatives: Educated urban women, particularly those residing in Indian states outside J&K, such as Uttar Pradesh and South India. These individuals possess the necessary social mobility and intelligence to blend into metropolitan environments, making them ideal for deep reconnaissance, logistics, and establishing sleeper cells far from traditional conflict zones.

 

The group’s propaganda strategically uses narratives of sisterhood, redemption, and ideological commitment. In conservative South Asian contexts, the promise of martyrdom can be particularly potent, often framed as a means for women who feel dishonored or socially compromised—such as victims of sexual violence or those facing severe social stigma—to gain redemption and restore familial honor. This sophisticated use of gendered vulnerability underscores the JUM’s strategic depth in psychological warfare.

III. The Operational Threat Matrix: Infiltration and Tasking 

3.1. Infiltration Vector Analysis: Leveraging Gender Concealment at the LoC and IB

 The deployment of female cadres significantly challenges existing counter-infiltration measures, which primarily profile male threats in border regions. Female operatives exploit established cultural norms in South Asia, which result in women being subject to inherently less scrutiny and less rigorous searches at checkpoints compared to men, granting them a critical concealment advantage.

While the militarized Line of Control (LoC) remains a route of concern—especially given that women on the Pakistani side have historically played a role in influencing infiltration dynamics —the most complex threat now originates from internal radicalization. Through its digital platforms, JeM is actively recruiting within the Indian heartland (e.g., UP and South India). If successful, these locally recruited operatives negate the need for dangerous cross-LoC physical infiltration. They operate using legitimate Indian identities, moving freely across state lines, transforming the infiltration challenge from a border security issue into a nationwide counter-intelligence and anti-sleeper cell operation. The security focus must therefore rapidly shift from physical border containment to pervasive surveillance of digital platforms and urban anti-terror operations.