Assessing the Strategic Threat Posed by Jaish-e-Mohammed's Female Cadre (Jamat-ul-Muminat) and India's Comprehensive Counter-Strategy-Part 1
15 Nov 2025 13:05:36
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.
| 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.
Assessing the Strategic Threat Posed by Jaish-e-Mohammed's Female Cadre (Jamat-ul-Muminat) and India's Comprehensive Counter-Strategy-Part 2
Non-Kinetic Operational Roles: Logistics, Funding, Intelligence, and OGW Management
The JUM cadres are vital components for strengthening JeM's non-kinetic support structures, ensuring the long-term viability of the terror ecosystem.
Financial Facilitation
Globally, women have been instrumental in managing financial flows for extremist organizations, often serving as bookkeepers, managing bank accounts, and running seemingly legitimate charitable organizations as fronts for fund diversion. JUM operatives are expected to provide this low-risk, high-impact financial lifeline, ensuring operational funds reach kinetic teams and support structures undetected.
Intelligence and Reconnaissance
The low-suspicion profile of female operatives makes them highly effective for intelligence and reconnaissance missions. They can move through crowded, high-security zones, including military or VVIP areas, without raising the alarm necessary to trigger intense scrutiny. This threat includes the intentional targeting of security force personnel through operational entrapment, often referred to as "honey traps." Intelligence reports concerning Lashkar-e-Taiba revealed that female operatives were explicitly tasked with trapping army officers and jawans to monitor sensitive troop movements and operational planning. JeM is expected to prioritize and formalize this highly damaging tactic.
Over Ground Worker (OGW) Management
In J&K, women have long served as crucial Over Ground Workers, providing localized logistical support, safe houses, and assistance in transporting money and weapons. JUM centralizes and professionalizes this support network, making the overall logistical backbone of JeM more resilient and difficult for security forces to dismantle.
Kinetic Tasking: Psychological Warfare and the Threat of Female Suicide Operations ('Fruit Soldiers')
The potential kinetic role of JUM—specifically the deployment of female suicide bombers—constitutes the most serious immediate threat, functioning both as a weapon of mass casualty and psychological warfare.
Operational Success and Lethality
Empirical evidence demonstrates that female suicide bombers are tactically superior for specific, high-stakes missions. Studies indicate that attacks carried out by women have a higher average casualty count (around 8.4 victims) and a statistically lower probability of failure compared to male-led attacks (around 5.3 victims). This elevated success rate explains why, among groups that use female operatives, women are responsible for 65% of all assassinations, even though they represent only 15% of the total suicide bomber pool. This high-efficiency profile positions them as the optimal choice for high-value targeting.
Target Prioritization
The priority targets for JUM kinetic units are likely to include VVIPs and high-ranking security/political leaders, utilizing the gender concealment advantage to achieve proximity to targets that male operatives cannot reach, echoing the 1991 LTTE assassination of Rajiv Gandhi. Attacks on security forces and infrastructure, as well as mass-casualty attacks in high-density urban areas, are also likely, maximizing both death toll and the element of psychological shock derived from the unexpected nature of the female perpetrator.
IV. Analytical Comparison: The Distinct Advantage of Female Terrorists
Operational Differences: Lethality, Access, and Success Rates
JeM's decision to weaponize gender is based on a sound, albeit chilling, understanding of operational efficiency. The operational deployment of female terrorists provides structural advantages that male terrorists lack. As noted, female-executed attacks are proven to be more lethal and less prone to failure. This enhanced effectiveness stems directly from the cultural and security environments in South Asia. Security protocols often incorporate a gender bias, leading to male security personnel hesitating or being physically unable (due to lack of female staff) to conduct thorough searches on women, thereby allowing them to carry explosives or concealed weaponry into tightly controlled areas. This access advantage is invaluable for high-value targeting, justifying JeM’s strategic shift.
4.2. Case Study: The LTTE’s Use of Female Suicide Bombers and Lessons for Indian Security
The use of female suicide bombers by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in Sri Lanka offers the most pertinent tactical blueprint for India’s counter-strategy. The LTTE, using its Black and Sea Tigers units, consistently utilized female operatives as specialized assets capable of infiltrating high-security military and political installations. The assassination of a former Indian Prime Minister confirmed the capacity of a female bomber to achieve point-blank proximity to a global leader. The JUM's recruitment of 'fruit soldiers' fundamentally mirrors this LTTE methodology: the deployment of women for missions requiring stealth, intimate proximity, and maximum psychological disruption. This historical analysis requires India’s security establishment to immediately implement mandatory gender-sensitive screening procedures across all high-risk environments.
4.3. Psychological Profiling: Motivation, Martyrdom, and the Element of Surprise
The underlying psychological drivers for female participation in JUM are complex, combining individual aspiration with ideological commitment. Crucially, the ideological framing provides a powerful mechanism for recruitment: in highly conservative societies, organizations like JeM exploit the vulnerability of socially compromised women, offering suicide martyrdom as a radical path to redemption and the restoration of familial honor.
Furthermore, the deployment of women serves a deliberate function in psychological warfare. Societal narratives often classify women exclusively as 'life-givers,' making their involvement as combatants or 'life-takers' psychologically jarring and highly uncomfortable for both the public and security forces. This profound violation of gender norms magnifies the shock value of any attack, ensuring extensive media coverage and amplifying the perception of threat, a critical objective in modern asymmetric conflict.
Table II. Comparative Analysis: Operational Distinctions Between JeM's Male and Female Cadres
| Differentiating Factor | Female Operatives (JUM) | Male Operatives (Traditional JeM) | Implication for India's Security |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target Access/Proximity | High: Exploits cultural constraints/low suspicion for VVIP access. | Lower: Subject to standard, rigorous security profiling and scrutiny. | Mandates gender-sensitive security protocols and female search teams. |
| Lethality/Success Rate | Higher average casualties (8.4 victims); less likely to fail.18 | Lower average casualties (5.3 victims); higher chance of pre-emption. | Deployment for high-stakes, high-impact kinetic missions (assassinations). |
| Recruitment Channel | Primarily digital (online courses); targets urban/educated women.11 | Primarily physical (camps, mosques); targets economically vulnerable men. | Requires aggressive digital counter-narrative and online surveillance. |
| Propaganda Value | Extreme: Generates maximal international media coverage and shock.22 | Standard impact, dependent on incident scale. | Requires specialized crisis communication strategy to mitigate psychological impact. |
V. Regional Contagion and Future Trends
Historical Presence of Women in Kashmir Conflict (Pre-JeM)
The introduction of JUM, while novel in its formal kinetic capacity for a Deobandi group, is built upon a history of female involvement in the Kashmir conflict. Women have historically provided crucial auxiliary and logistical support, acting as Over Ground Workers (OGWs) who facilitate communications and logistics for militant groups. Furthermore, before the JeM pivot, its ally Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) maintained training camps for women in PoK, where they received arms training and ideological instruction. The case of the arrested LeT operative Khalida Akhtar confirmed the group’s use of women for intelligence gathering, surveillance, and compromising security force members through entrapment operations. This background confirms that the infrastructure and the concept of women in operational support roles were already present, which JUM is now leveraging and expanding into kinetic domains.
Ideological Pressure on Allied Groups (Lashkar-e-Taiba and Hizbul Mujahideen) to Adopt Female Cadres
JeM's formal mobilization of JUM is expected to exert significant pressure on other Pakistan-based militant groups operating in J&K, notably LeT and Hizbul Mujahideen. LeT has traditionally held a stringent theological stance against involving women in direct combat, relying instead on their roles as ideological reproducers and supporters.
However, the organizational dynamic dictates that if JUM successfully executes a high-profile, high-impact attack in India, JeM will instantly gain substantial prestige and tactical relevance. Given that LeT also sustained damage during Operation Sindoor , it cannot afford to be viewed as operationally outdated. The pragmatic shift observed within the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), which ultimately relaxed its ideological constraints to employ female suicide bombers , confirms that tactical necessity can often override strict dogma in this theater. JeM is using gender as a tactical differentiator, and the success of JUM will likely accelerate the ideological justification process for LeT and other rival/allied militant groups to adopt similar female combatant units.
Global Trends in Female Jihad: Lessons from IS, TTP, and Chechen groups
JeM’s organizational pivot mirrors a global evolution in terrorism tactics. The Islamic State (IS) demonstrated the efficacy of targeting women digitally, using social media to groom and recruit Western women by appealing to their sense of camaraderie and ideological purpose. JUM's online course structure clearly leverages this proven digital grooming model. Additionally, the emergence of the 'Black Widows' in the Chechen conflict—female suicide bombers often motivated by the loss of male family members during wartime —provides a direct parallel to the JeM leadership profile, where Sadiya Azhar is the widow of a commander slain in the conflict. These global precedents confirm that JeM is adopting a well-established, modern terrorist strategy designed to maximize disruption and organizational stability following male cadre decapitation.
Strategic Counter-Measures: A Gender-Responsive National Security Policy
Neutralizing the multifaceted threat posed by Jamat-ul-Muminat requires a comprehensive, integrated "Whole of Government" response that incorporates gender-responsive strategies across all security domains.
Intelligence and Counter-Infiltration Enhancements
India must strengthen its capacity to detect, disrupt, and degrade operations conducted by JeM’s female operatives.
Specialized Counter-Infiltration Teams
It is imperative to rapidly increase the deployment of highly trained women officers in all security and counter-terrorism roles. These personnel must be mandatory in LoC districts, at critical infrastructure checkpoints, and within VVIP protection formations. The use of female officers is crucial for performing effective, culturally sensitive searches and surveillance on female suspects, directly eliminating the tactical concealment advantage currently utilized by JUM.
Targeted Intelligence Collection
Intelligence gathering requires focused adaptation. The security apparatus must adopt a policy of collecting and analyzing sex-disaggregated data and gender-related indicators to better understand the distinct drivers of female radicalization and the nuanced roles women play in finance, logistics, and reconnaissance. Specific intelligence dossiers must track potential "honey trap" operations targeting security personnel. Furthermore, an intensified schedule of Cordon and Search Operations (CASO) must be launched, specifically leveraging human intelligence to dismantle female OGW networks and safe house infrastructure.
Counter-Financing and Organizational Disruption
The digital funding model of JUM requires a sophisticated financial counter-offensive.
Digital Finance Tracking and Disruption
Security agencies must actively monitor and disrupt digital payment channels used to collect fees for the JUM online course ('Tufat al-Muminat'). This necessitates increased surveillance of cryptocurrencies and digital wallets, coupled with scrutiny of charitable organizations (such as the Al-Akhtar Trust) historically used as financial fronts by JeM. Continued diplomatic efforts through bodies like the FATF are vital to expose JeM’s persistent ability to fundraise under new guises, thereby ensuring international pressure on Pakistan to curb these activities.
Sustained Organizational Dismantling
The legal and financial war on the terror ecosystem must be sustained through preventive operations targeting JeM’s strategic enablers and financiers. This includes the seizure and attachment of properties belonging to JeM associates and the proactive banning of any new front organizations designed to mask JUM’s operations.
Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism (P/CVE)
Counter-radicalization efforts must be gender-sensitive, recognizing women as both potential perpetrators and victims of extremism.
Digital Counter-Narrative Warfare
A robust digital counter-narrative strategy is essential to compete with JUM’s online grooming and propaganda on platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp. These counter-narratives must be specifically tailored to delegitimize the extremist ideology, particularly dismantling the narratives of ‘redemption’ and ‘martyrdom’ that target vulnerable women.
Gender-Sensitive Community Engagement
P/CVE interventions must focus on genuine empowerment and economic upliftment, particularly for the economically vulnerable and educated urban women targeted by JUM. To maintain community trust, it is paramount that programs focusing on women’s rights and empowerment are formally detached from overt counter-terrorism operations, ensuring that women’s voices and leadership are not instrumentalized but genuinely supported in defining local security priorities.
Conclusion and Policy Synthesis
The mobilization of Jaish-e-Mohammed’s Jamat-ul-Muminat is a consequential strategic evolution, directly spurred by the crippling losses sustained during Operation Sindoor. This development represents a pragmatic ideological shift, enabling the organization to secure high-impact kinetic capabilities and ensure organizational continuity through blood loyalty. The threat is not merely supplemental; it challenges the core assumptions of India’s existing security protocols.
Nuanced Conclusions
Kinetic Threat Escalation: The confirmed operational lethality and access advantages of female suicide bombers elevate the immediate threat of high-profile political and military assassinations across the Indian subcontinent.
Geographic Diffusion: Digital recruitment facilitates the strategic shift of the terror ecosystem away from border confrontations toward internal sleeper cell formation in non-traditional terror hubs (urban centers in UP and South India).
Ideological Contagion: JeM’s success with JUM will likely compel ideological allies like Lashkar-e-Taiba to follow suit, increasing the overall gendered threat landscape in Kashmir.
Actionable Strategic Recommendations
To neutralize this emerging threat, Indian security strategy must pivot toward an integrated, gender-responsive framework focused on three concurrent lines of effort:
Tactical Mitigation and Force Modernization: Mandate the immediate expansion and operational integration of trained female security forces across all critical border and urban CT roles. Institute mandatory gender-sensitive physical security and profiling measures for VVIP protection and counter-infiltration operations.
Digital Ecosystem Disruption: Dedicate resources to aggressive financial tracking of JUM's online fundraising streams and implement sophisticated, tailored digital counter-narrative campaigns to preempt online radicalization and grooming of women in vulnerable demographics.
Societal Resilience and Preventative Engagement: Invest in autonomous, bottom-up P/CVE programs that empower vulnerable women economically and socially, ensuring that counter-extremism efforts are built on community trust and are explicitly separated from military or overt intelligence operations.
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