The Army of Mohammed (Jaish-e-Mohammed — JeM), one of Pakistan's too-many-to-count jihadist terrorist groups, recently launched its first-ever women's wing.
The "Congregation of the Believing Women" (Jamaat-ul-Mominaat) was launched on October 9, 2025, and hosted by JeM's training facility, "Center of Usman and Ali," (Markaz Usman-o-Ali) in Bahawalpur, a city in the southeast of Pakistan's Punjab Province.
The JeM's women's wing has since held meetings, launched in-person and online radicalization events, recruitment fairs, and indoctrination courses for women and girls that include specialized training for combat and suicide missions
On October 19, JeM organized another event for the "Daughters of Islam" ("Dukhtaran-e-Islam") to attract women into the terror group. "Daughters of Islam," a radical Islamist women's organization, emerged in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the late 1980s.
Since October, many more training sessions have taken place: for instance, in Rawalpindi on October 26; in Lahore on October 27; in Karachi on November 7, and in Sindh on November 9.
The women's wing of JEM is particularly active through online classes on jihad and other Islamic issues. One of those classes, called "One Thousand Units of Jihad in the Path of Allah" (Alfiya Al-Jihad Fi Sabil Allah) is a new training program by Sadia Azhar, sister of Masood Azhar, JeM's chief. It has taken place five days a week since August 15.
The goal of another online jihad course, "Gift to Believing Women," (Tuhfat-ul-Mominaat), which began on November 8, appears to be recruitment, indoctrination and fundraising. For this course, 40-minute daily lectures are given by women family members of JeM leaders. They teach Islamic duties and jihad. Each woman enrolled is required to make a donation of PKR 500, just under $2.
JeM chief Azhar claims that since its launch, the women's wing has recruited 5,000 members.
JeM was founded by Masood Azhar in early 2000 and has since been designated as a terrorist organization by the UN, India, the US, the UK, Russia, Canada, the UAE, and Australia. According to the US National Counterterrorism Center, JeM has openly declared war against the United States. According to a report by the Australian parliament, "JeM may be facilitating the activities of international jihadists intending to conduct terrorist operations outside Kashmir or greater India, including the United Kingdom and US."
In 2019, Azhar was added by the UN to its "ISIS and Al-Qaida Sanctions List" for "being associated with Al-Qaida":
"Mohammed Masood Azhar Alvi founded Jaish-i-Mohammed (JEM) upon his release from prison in India in 1999. Azhar was released from prison in exchange for 155 hostages held on an Indian Airlines flight that had been hijacked to Kandahar, Afghanistan. Azhar has also financially supported JEM since its founding.
"The UN Security Council listed JEM on October 17, 2001, as being associated with Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden, and the Taliban for "participating in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing or perpetrating of acts or activities by, in conjunction with, under the name of, on behalf or in support of", "supplying, selling or transferring arms and related materiel to" or "otherwise supporting acts or activities of" Al-Qaida, Usama bin Laden and the Taliban.
"Azhar is also a former leader of the terrorist group Harakat ul-Mujahidin / HUM, aka Harakat ul-Ansar; most of these groups' members subsequently joined JEM under Azhar's leadership. In 2008, JEM recruitment posters contained a call from Azhar for volunteers to join the fight in Afghanistan against Western forces."
In October 2025, Azhar released a 21-minute audio message from the group's Bahawalpur headquarters, outlining a detailed plan for training, indoctrinating, and deploying women under the new unit, the Times of India reported.
According to journalists who analyzed his audio message, Azhar explains how these women are now recruited, trained, and integrated into his long-term "global jihad" mission, mirroring the structure of JeM's long-running male training program.
In his speech, Azhar promised that any woman who joins the group "will go straight to paradise from her grave after death."
"The enemies of Jaish have put Hindu women into the army and set up female journalists against us," Azhar claimed, declaring that he is "mobilising his women to compete and fight against them."
Women joining Jamaat-ul-Mominaat are trained through an induction course named "Daura-e-Taskiya" ("Course of Purification") conducted at Markaz Usman-o-Ali in Bahawalpur, Times of India reported, citing local media. The course is expected to provide similar ideological training as the primary indoctrination course for male recruits. Women who successfully complete the first course will advance to a second stage, which teaches how Islamic texts "instruct women to conduct jihad" and "spread Islam across the world."
According to Azhar:
"Women joining the brigade must not speak to any unrelated men through phone or messenger, except their husbands or immediate family members."
Azhar added that the women's wing branches will be opened in every district, each headed by a coordinator responsible for recruiting local women. The women's wing is led by Sadiya Azhar, Azhar's widowed sister.
Azhar revealed that Jamaat-ul-Mominaat includes "4–5 women whose male relatives were killed in encounters with the Indian Army," who will inspire new recruits under a campaign called Shoba-e-Dawat. Notably, 14 members of Azhar's family were killed in India's Operation Sindoor, which decimated terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
JeM, despite the 2002 ban on its activities, continues to operate openly in parts of Pakistan. The group has conducted many lethal terrorist attacks, including a suicide bombing of the Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly building in the Indian-administered Kashmir capital of Srinagar in October 2001 -- killing more than 30 people – followed by an attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001.
In July 2004, Pakistani authorities arrested a JeM member who was wanted in connection with the 2002 abduction and murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl. In 2006, JeM claimed responsibility for a number of attacks, including the killing of several Indian police officials in Srinagar. JeM members were also involved in the 2007 Red Mosque uprising in Islamabad.
According to the 2019 dossier submitted to the UNSC 1267 Sanctions Committee by India, Azhar has worked with Al Qaeda and the Taliban:
"Azhar established JeM with the support of Al Qaeda (AQ) and Mullah Omar (Taliban). He has actively supported and has closely worked with the AQ, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM) and other affiliates of AQ."....
"JeM has undertaken a recruitment drive through its students and charity fronts... [and] regularly organizes events... to urge people to wage jihad.
"JeM, under Azhar, also .... gathers together in the name of killed terrorists in order to collect funds and radicalize and motivate youth.
Azhar made another threat on January 12, 2026. In the audio recording, he claimed that suicide bombers are waiting in numbers so large that the world would be shocked if revealed.
The launch of the women's wing of JeM in Pakistan was done with the apparent approval of the country's government. This underscores the alliance between JeM and Pakistan's military establishment. JeM has committed real atrocities over the past decades, threatens India's security and aims to spread Islam across the world.
The Islamic Republic of Pakistan, since its founding in 1947, is home to numerous Islamic terror organizations. JeM is also a member of the United Jihad Council (UJC), sponsored by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).
Pakistan apparently intends to continue using terrorism to advance its agenda of exporting Islam to the rest of the world. The launch of JeM's women's wing is a further attempt to recruit more women terrorists. Given that the goal of these jihadist groups is global jihad and domination, they pose a serious security threat not just to South Asia, but also beyond.
Pakistan has been invited by the Trump administration to join his "Board of Peace" for the purported stabilization of Gaza, and Pakistan accepted the offer.
Uzay Bulut, a Turkish journalist, is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Gatestone Institute.
