Maulana Masood Azhar, the chief of Pakistan-based militant group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), along with ten of his family members and four close aides, were killed in an airstrike targeting the `Subhan Allah` mosque in Bahawalpur, Pakistan.
JeM confirmed the deaths in a statement issued Wednesday, naming the victims as Azhar’s elder sister and her husband, his nephew and his wife, his niece, and five children from the family.
Three of his close associates and the mother of one of them were also reportedly killed.
Maulana Masood Azhar is listed as a “global terrorist” by the United Nations. He was previously linked to several terror attacks, including the deadly Pulwama bombing in February 2019, which killed 40 Indian paramilitary personnel.
India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) later named Azhar and his brother Abdur Rauf Asghar as key figures behind the attack. The Pulwama incident had brought India and Pakistan dangerously close to war.
The airstrikes, launched by India after midnight on Tuesday, reportedly targeted nine locations across Pakistan, which New Delhi claims were “terrorist infrastructure” sites, according to Reuters.
Pakistan, however, disputed the claim, saying that six locations were hit but none were terror camps.
