Jaish chief Masood Azhar’s brother dies in Pakistan under mysterious circumstances: Reports
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Jaish chief Masood Azhar’s brother dies in Pakistan under mysterious circumstances: Reports")
Masood Azhar Photograph: (Credits: X)
Mohammad Tahir Anwar, brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, has died in Pakistan under unclear circumstances. Masood Azhar, founder of the JeM terror group linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, has orchestrated multiple attacks on India, with JeM’s operational hub in Bahawalpur.
Terror group Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief Masood Azhar's brother Mohammad Tahir Anwar has reportedly died in Pakistan, with no clarity yet on the cause of his death. Tahir Anwar, one of the five brothers of Masood was involved in the terror group's activities for several years. His death was announced through the outfit’s Telegram channel, which said his funeral will be held at 11 pm at Jamia Usman-o-Ali in Bahawalpur. However, there has been no official clarification on the circumstances surrounding his death. The announcement did not cite illness or any specific incident, with Pakistani media reporting only about the death and funeral.
Who is Masood Azhar?
Maulana Masood Azhar, born in 1968 in Bahawalpur, has long been one of India’s most wanted terrorists. Before founding JeM, Azhar was an active member and cleric with Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HuM), an Islamist militant outfit active in Afghanistan and Kashmir. In 1994, Azhar was arrested in Jammu and Kashmir while attempting to mediate between feuding factions of HuM under a fake identity.
In December 1999, HuM hijacked Indian Airlines Flight IC-814, which was en route from Kathmandu to Delhi. The hijackers diverted the aircraft to Kandahar, Afghanistan, then under Taliban control. They demanded the release of Azhar and two others. After days of tense negotiations, India released Azhar along with Omar Sheikh and Mushtaq Zargar in exchange for the 190 passengers and crew members. Shortly after his release, Azhar publicly declared his goal of "destroying India" and founded Jaish-e-Mohammed on January 31, 2000, in Karachi. The organisation was reportedly backed by the ISI, the Taliban, and even Osama bin Laden. His earlier group, Harkat-ul-Ansar, which evolved into HuM, was designated as a terrorist organisation by the CIA in the late 1990s. The CIA reported that HuA was involved in kidnappings and killings of Westerners, and served Pakistan’s proxy interests in Kashmir.
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Strikes in Bahawalpur: The heart of JeM
Notably, in 2025, India, under Operation Sindoor hit Bahawalpur, a major city in Pakistan's Punjab province, that serves as the ideological and operational nerve center of JeM. Located around 400 km from Lahore, Bahawalpur houses the infamous Jamia Masjid Subhan Allah complex, also known as the Usman-o-Ali campus, where JeM’s leadership reportedly directs fundraising, recruitment, and radical indoctrination activities.
In September, JeM commander Masood Ilyas admitted that Masood Azhar's family was ‘torn into pieces’ in Bahawalpur in India's Op Sindoor. “After sacrificing everything, on May 7, Maulana Masood Azhar's family was destroyed in Bahawalpur," said the JeM commander referring to Operation Sindoor by Indian armed forces.
