New Delhi: The pre-emptive airstrike carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) in the early hours of Tuesday at a Jaish-e-Mohammed training facility in Pakistan’s Balakot region resulted in major casualties, said to be more than 300, for the dreaded terror outfit. These include some important commander and high value targets like Maulana Yousuf Azhar alias Ustad Ghouri, who is said to be the brother-in-law of Jaish chief Maulana Masood Azhar.
Indian security and intelligence agencies claimed that while they were still in the process of gathering details of the militants killed in the air strike, there were unconfirmed reports suggesting that Yousuf was among those eliminated in the incident.
Yousuf is said to be heading the terror training facility at Balakot and was one of the main operational commanders of Jaish. Intelligence sources claimed he was personally monitoring training of the Jaish cadres, particularly its fidayeen or suicide squad. He is said to have trained Ghazi alias Kamran, who was the mastermind of Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed on February 14.
Yousuf, sources claimed, played a key role in securing the release of Jaish chief Masood Azhar in 1999 as he was one of the masterminds and hijackers of the India Airlines flight IC-814.
The Interpol had issued a Red Corner notice against him in 2002.
