How Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar is training the Jaish women's jihad brigade

Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) appears to have opened a new front: a women’s jihad brigade.

A 21-minute audio recording, accessed by India Today, of JeM chief Maulana Masood Azhar’s speech at Markaz Usman-o-Ali in Bahawalpur, in which he outlines plans to train, indoctrinate and deploy women under a unit called Jamat-ul-Mominat.

In the recording, Azhar tells would-be recruits that any woman who joins his “global jihad” vision “will go straight to paradise from her grave after death”.

Previously, it was reported that the terror group has launched an online 'jihadi' course to “indoctrinate and recruit” women into Jaish, which has been responsible for several terror attacks in India, including those in Uri and Pulwama.

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About Jaish’s training program for women 

In the audio, Azhar says women will be given a structured induction similar to the one men receive. He compares the new course to the 15-day “Daura-e-Tarbiat” that has long been used to indoctrinate male recruits, and says the women’s version will be called “Daura-e-Taskiya”, run at Markaz Usman o Ali in Bahawalpur.

For years, JeM’s Daura-e-Tarbiat has been the first step in grooming men, convincing new recruits that jihad against India guarantees paradise. Azhar says he plans to apply the same ideological process to women.

Those who finish the initial course, he adds, will move to a second phase, “Daura-Ayat-ul-Nisah”, where they will be taught how Islamic texts, in his view, “instruct women to conduct jihad.”

Azhar frames the brigade as a response to what he calls the enemy’s use of women in uniform and in the media. “The enemies of Jaish have put Hindu women into the army and set up female journalists against us,” he says, and vows to “mobilise his women to compete and fight against them”.

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Pakistan's terror group Jaish launches online ‘jihadi’ course for women. What we know so far

His remarks come at a time when Indian women are taking on increasingly prominent roles in defence forces. Nearly 7,000 female officers are currently serving in India’s Army, and over 1,600 in the Air Force, according to the latest government figures released in 2023.

Recently, Squadron Leader Shivangi Singh, India’s first woman Rafale pilot, posed with President Droupadi Murmu at the Ambala Air Force base after giving her a hands-on tour of the multi-role fighter jet.

‘Must not speak to unrelated men’

Azhar laid down strict rules for women joining the new brigade. Recruits, he says, must not speak to any “unrelated men through phone or messenger, except their husbands or immediate family members.”

He has also urged women to read his pamphlet ‘Ae Musalman Behna’, a document that seems to be part of the indoctrination. In his address, Azhar announced that branches of the women’s unit will be set up in every district of Pakistan, with each branch led by a muntazima (manager) responsible for recruitment.

Earlier reports suggested that Azhar had appointed his sister, Sadiya Azhar, to head the women’s brigade. The leadership team also includes his other sister, Samaira Azhar, and Afeera Farooq, the wife of Pulwama attack mastermind Umar Farooq. Around four to five other women, whose relatives were killed in encounters with the Indian Army, are said to be part of the core team.

The creation of this unit follows Operation Sindoor, an Indian strike carried out in May on Jaish’s Bahawalpur headquarters, in retaliation for the terror attack in Pahalgam, Jammu and Kashmir, a month earlier. The operation reportedly killed 14 members of Azhar’s family and several senior JeM operatives.

In the audio, Azhar claims his elder sister, Hawa Bibi, was among those killed. He says he had conceptualised the women’s brigade with her before her death.

A senior counter-terror official told NDTV that “after Operation Sindoor and the Pahalgam attack, JeM’s leadership realised that female members could be used to evade security scrutiny and carry out logistics or propaganda operations. This course is part of that strategy.”

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JeM also conducting online ‘jihadi’courses

JeM has now taken its campaign online, launching virtual classes and courses for women. Posters doing the rounds on social media name Umme Masood, believed to be another of Masood Azhar’s sisters, as the instructor for these online sessions. The classes are scheduled to run five days a week starting November 8.

According to reports, participants are being asked to pay 500 Pakistani rupees (around Rs 156) as a “donation” and fill out an online form to enrol in the programme.

Given Pakistan’s conservative social setting, where women’s movement is often restricted, JeM has reportedly shifted its recruitment drive to online platforms, allowing the group to reach potential recruits more discreetly.

Traditionally, the Deobandi-rooted JeM had kept women away from active participation in jihad. But fresh intelligence inputs now suggest that Azhar and his brother Talha al-Saif have approved the inclusion of women in the group’s operational setup.

This marks a major strategic shift for JeM, one that mirrors the tactics of ISIS, Boko Haram, Hamas, and the LTTE, all of which have previously deployed female fighters and suicide bombers to carry out attacks and evade early detection by security forces.

With input from agencies