Abdul Rauf Azhar is ranked among the most difficult to capture and hazardous militant commanders in South Asia region, he personifies the problem of cross-bre withRouter effect. A JeM commander and the younger brother of the group’s founder, Masood Azhar, Azhar was involved in various terror activities in Pakistan. For more than two decades, Abdul Rauf Azhar lived in the twilight zone planning and directing attacks that tore the Indian sub-continent apart and woke up the world. However, as they say, change is the only constant, and the latest events in the plot have led to a highly dynamited climax.
Who is Abdul Rauf Azhar?
Abdul Rauf Azhar was born in 1974 in Bahawalpur, which is situated in the Punjab province of Pakistan, and was influenced similarly to his brother Masood Azhar by Deobandi extremism. He rose through the ranks of JeM and helped the outfit perpetrate many terrorist attacks in India and Afghanistan. Abdul Rauf was not only a militant on the ground but also many other things. Earlier, he was involved in the administration of planning, propaganda, and organization in executing the various activities of the group.
He had first come to the limelight at the end of the 1990s especially through leading the hijacking of the Indian Airlines flight IC 814 in December, 1999. This brutal hijacking, which started from Kandahar, resulted in the release of Masood Azhar from an Indian jail. The event reinforced the strength of JeM and at the same time took the tensions between India and Pakistan to the dangerous level. After that, Abdul Rauf Azhar continued to play a key part in the planning of more operations against the Indians.
A Prolonged Bloody Trail
Abdul Rauf Azhar is suspected of being the mastermind behind a number of well-known terrorist attacks. Some of the most important are:
The 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, which almost triggered a nuclear exchange between two countries.
The 2016 attack on the Pathankot Air Force facility.
One of the deadliest assaults on Indian paramilitary troops was the 2019 Pulwama suicide bombing, which claimed the lives of 40 CRPF members.
International Sanctions and Controversies
Abdul Rauf Azhar was first put on the terror list in December 2010 and then the United States tried to halt his activities through putting sanctions on him. However, some agitation arose in his regard and he was put into 1267 Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee List of the UN Security Council. Most significantly, a permanent member state China, blocked India and the US’s plan to designate Rauf Azhar as a global terrorist in August 2022 on the pretext of seeking more time to investigate the matter. This was criticised because it was deemed to have been taken for the purpose of guarding a known terrorist.
Operation Sindoor Death
Indonesian born Abdul Rauf Azhar gave up a rebellion on the May 6, 2025 after being killed in an Indian airstrike targeting a camp in Bahawalpur, Pakistan, as part of Operation Sindoor. His demise made a big impact to the campaign against terrorism in India since it was one of the brains behind the planning of attacks on Indian interests. It took the Indian intelligence and defence services a couple of months to gather intelligence and formulate this operation. Lies being told, it must be mentioned that an important JeM training and logistic camp was apparently the target of the intended strike. Apart from eliminating one of the last JeM’s leaders, his death was quite significant because he was to serve notice to other anti-India terrorists operating from Pakistan.
Implications and Legacy
The death of Abdul Rauf Azhar is also an indication that the fight against terrorism remains a work in progress, especially when global politics makes it difficult for countries to unite and fight it. It has thus brought an end to the life of a man who posed a serious threat to the regional and global security and weltanschauung he fostered has also remained very much alive. This means that the India’s emphasis on intelligence lead counterterrorism measures and the vindictive operations are on the rise. Although decapitating terrorist leaders may help temporarily reduce terrorist capabilities, experts have further pointed out that in some places the ideological base that produced individuals such as Abdul Rauf Azhar remains.
Apart from that, the fact that interntionional efforts to list him as an ‘international terrorist’ were overshadowed by politicking also put in doubt the seriousness of the international community to address terror.
In conclusion
The case of Abdul Rauf Azhar is a narrative that symbolizes remembered that dormant but stable terror networks can continue with an established structure regardless of the condemnation. This was the path of Azhar which involved horrors and impunity for hijackings, suicide bombers and international sanctions. It’s possible to capture even a man who had been hiding somewhere in the woods for a long time with the use of patience, international cooperation and surprise raids as shown in the elimination phase of Operation Sindoor.
