New Delhi: The November 10 suicide bombing at Delhi’s Red Fort is not an isolated incident but part of a larger resurgence of Jaish e Mohammed (JeM), warned Italian investigative journalist Francesca Marino in an interview to NDTV, stressing the group is rebuilding and adapting new tactics to sustain its relevance.
Marino was speaking to NDTV after the launch of her book “From Pulwama to Payback – The Inside Story”, where she pointed out the attack that killed 13 and injured more than 20 people was carried out using triacetone triperoxide or TATP, referred as “Mother of Satan”.
She said that the same high explosive compound was used in past European attacks, and that it fits JeM’s long term doctrine of revenge and expansion.
In the exclusive conversation with NDTV, she shared that according to intelligence inputs she had seen, the plan may originally have been plotted to coincide with December 6, which is the anniversary of the Babri Masjid demolition, and could have been hatched aiming at a Hindu religious site.
Marino said that JeM “exists only to target India,” warning the group sustains on strikes to maintain relevance and funding.
She added that intelligence inputs indicate the organisation is rebuilding aggressively, including reportedly developing a women suicide bomber wing linked to relatives of terror group leader Masood Azhar.
Her book revisits the chain of events that followed the 2019 Pulwama attack and India’s Balakot strike, and Marino says those incidents helped shape JeM’s trajectory.
While the Red Fort attack underscores JeM’s regained confidence, Marino placed its origins in the events following the Pulwama attack in 2019 and the subsequent Indian Air Force strike on Balakot.
Her book revisits the controversy with fresh details, including her own eyewitness-based reporting that time.
Islamabad had attempted to dismiss the reportage with a coordinated disinformation campaign.
She told NDTV that her trusted source had revealed seeing 35 bodies being carried away on the night of the Balakot strike.
Phones were confiscated, and within hours, Pakistan’s military began clearing debris and relocating the injured to an Army facility.
Over the following days, the area was sealed off, she said, adding that Pakistan, meanwhile, kept insisting publicly that India had “hit only trees”.
According to the journalist, Balakot damaged the terror group’s camps and infrastructure, but its operational core has been recovering and seeking revenge ever since.
Drawing on eyewitness reporting from Balakot, Marino described heavy security measures, alleged evidence removal and a coordinated Pakistani information campaign that sought to deny or downplay the strike’s impact, a pattern she saw as proof of Islamabad’s opacity on militant activity.
She also expressed alarm at what she described as greater radicalisation within Pakistan’s security establishment, singling out Army Chief General Asim Munir as an example of an emboldened leadership that, in her view, helps sustain militant networks such as JeM and Lashkar e Toiba (LeT).
She told NDTV that her book is aimed at both security analysts and general readers to cut through disinformation and explain how groups like JeM operate, how they have been enabled, and how the Pulwama, Balakot, and Delhi attacks fit into a broader pattern of militant strategy against India.
Publication details and the full interview appear on NDTV’s site, where Marino expands on the intelligence threads and operational assessments that underscore her warnings about JeM’s renewed threat to India’s security.
(IANS)
