In a diplomatic victory for India, the report of the Monitoring Team (MT) of the UNSC 1267 [ISIS (Da’esh) and Al-Qaida] Sanctions Committee has mentioned in its report, The Resistance Front (TRF), which carried out the Pahalgam terror attack.
The report explicitly recorded the involvement of the TRF, a proxy outfit of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba in the Pahalgam terror attack of 22 April 2025, where 26 civilians were killed.
This is also the first time that a LeT/Pakistan-based terror group has been mentioned in the report since 2019.
“The paragraph on TRF and the Pahalgam terror attack is the first part under the South Asia Section and the largest. It is in sync with what India has been stating on the links between the TRF and the LeT and its support from Pakistan,” government sources said.
The UNSC Report states, “On 22 April, five terrorists attacked a tourist spot in Pahalgam, in Jammu and Kashmir. Twenty-six civilians were killed. The attack was claimed that same day by The Resistance Front (TRF), who in parallel published a photograph of the attack site. The claim of responsibility was repeated the following day. On 26 April, however, TRF retracted their claim. There was no further communication from TRF, and no other group claimed responsibility.”
The report highlighted that relations between the LeT and TRF could not be ruled out, and the region remained at risk of being exploited by the terrorists.
“Regional relations remain fragile. There is a risk that terrorist groups may exploit these regional tensions. One Member State said the attack could not have happened without Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT, QDe.118) support, and that there was a relationship between LeT and TRF,” the UN report stated.
“Another Member State said that the attack was carried out by TRF, who was synonymous with LeT. One Member State rejected these views and said LeT was defunct,” the UNSC monitoring team report stated.
This development is particularly notable as all decisions of the 1267 Sanctions Committee, including monitoring team reports, are adopted by consensus by the members of the Security Council.
The Foreign Minister of Pakistan Ishaq Dar had earlier boasted in the Pakistan National Assembly about forcing the removal of references to TRF in the UNSC press statement condemning the Pahalgam attack.
“The mention of the TRF in the MT Report is how the world views Pakistan’s lies and deceitful narrative,” government sources said.
“Pakistan’s strategy of plausible deniability — using secular and modern names like “The Resistance Front” and “People Against Fascist Front” for its jihadi proxies to divert attention from LeT/JeM and give an indigenous appearance to its terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir — now stands punctured,” the sources said.
The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) has been providing detailed inputs on TRF and other Pakistan-sponsored terror proxies to the MT since December 2023. In 2024, on two occasions, MEA had provided inputs to the MT on the activities of the TRF and its linkages to the LeT.
The inclusion of TRF in the MT Report despite efforts by Pakistan, which is the chair of the UN body for the month of July, for its removal highlights Islamabad’s undeniable involvement in fomenting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir. It also attests to India’s credibility in the UN on the Counter Terrorism front.
An MEA-led inter-ministerial delegation briefed the MT and other senior UN officials in New York in May 2024 and also shared a dossier on TRF.
The inter-ministerial delegation had held separate briefings for like-minded countries in the Security Council and other major UN member states.
Founded in 2019, shortly after the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir (J-K), TRF is a part of broader Pakistan’s ISI-backed disinformation and hybrid warfare and targets civilians, minorities, tourists and security forces. (ANI)
