Masood Azhar shifted to Rawalpindi for safety reasons: Reports

Safeguarding the Jaish-e-Mohammad chief has always been key priority in Pakistan and the latest action of the government to attests to this. Latest intel report suggests that Masood Azhar has been moved out of the JeM headquarters at Bahawalpur. It also added that there was information that he could be hit and hence he has been moved to Rawalpindi.

Moving him to Rawalpindi clearly suggests that he is being hidden under heavy protection by the ISI, claims news reports.

The move comes in the backdrop of days after he mocked at the US as a “wolf whose tail was cut” by Taliban jihadists in Afghanistan.

While Hindustan Times report says that it was not clear whether Azhar was shifted by the Rawalpindi General Headquarters under pressure from the Trump administration, counterterror operatives say the JeM chief was moved to a safe house in Rawalpindi on March 3, a day after he was summoned by Rawalpindi GHQ along with his brothers Maulana Rauf Asghar, the de facto chief of operations of JeM, and Maulana Ammar, who heads the terror group’s jihadist magazine Al Qalam.

For someone who was reported “untraceable” by the Pakistan government to the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary in Paris last month, Azhar’s statement praising his ideological brothers, the Taliban, has come as an embarrassment to the Imran Khan government, HT quoted according to experts.