JeM chief Masood Azhar shifted to Rawalpindi for personal safety: Report

New Delhi : Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) chief and global terrorist Masood Azhar has reportedly been shifted by Pakistan’s deep state from his Bahawalpur headquarters to Rawalpindi for his personal safety, said a news report.

It is still not clear if he has been moved to Rawalpindi under pressure from the Trump administration, the people known to the matter said that he has been shifted on March 3.

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, according to experts.

Azhar also took a potshot on the US Policy and said, “there was a day when America was walking like a wolf wandering in Afghanistan, today is that day in Qatar, Doha where faith is high, jihad is high, hopes are smiling, the wolf’s tail is cut off and its teeth are shattering”.

According to a report by the Hindustan Times, two people aware of the matter claimed that Azhar and his brothers were called to Rawalpindi on March 2.

Though India is skeptical of the US-Taliban peace deal, given the Islamist group’s links with Azhar and other terror groups in Pakistan, it will not pose hurdles to either bringing peace to Kabul or withdrawal of the US and NATO forces from Afghanistan.