Jaish-e-Mohammed (Urdu: جيشِ محمدؐ, romanized: Jaysh-i Muḥammad, lit. 'Army of Muhammad'; abbreviated as JeM) is a Pakistan-based Deobandi Islamist militant group active in Kashmir. The group's primary motive is to separate Kashmir from India and merge it into Pakistan.
Since its inception in 2000, the group has carried out several attacks, primarily in the Indian administered Jammu and Kashmir. It portrays Kashmir as a "gateway" to the entire India, whose Muslims are also deemed to be in need of liberation. It also maintained close relations with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and continues to be allied with these groups.
JeM was apparently created with the support of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), which uses it to fight in Kashmir and other places, and continues to provide it backing. The JeM has been banned in Pakistan since 2002, but resurfaced under other names. Its apparent variants openly continue to operate several facilities in the country.
According to B. Raman, Jaish-e-Mohammed is viewed as the "deadliest" and "the principal Islamic terrorist organisation in Jammu and Kashmir". The group was responsible for several terror attacks: the 2001 attack on Jammu and Kashmir legislative assembly, the 2001 Indian Parliament attack, the 2016 Pathankot airbase attack, the 2016 attack on the Indian Mission in Mazar-i-Sharif, the 2016 Uri attack, and the 2019 Pulwama attack, each of which has had strategic consequences for India–Pakistan relations. The group has been designated as a terrorist organisation by Pakistan, Russia, Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, the European Union, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Nations.
In 2016, JeM was suspected of being responsible for an attack on the Pathankot airbase in India. The Indian government, and some other sources, accused Pakistan of assisting JeM in conducting the attack. Pakistan denied assisting JeM, and arrested several members of JeM in connection with the attack, who were then released by the security establishment according to a report in Dawn. Pakistan called the report an "amalgamation of fiction and fabrication". In February 2019, the group took responsibility for a suicide bombing attack on a security convoy in the Pulwama district that killed 40 security personnel, named as one of the largest attacks in recent years.
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