UNSC report links TRF to attack in Pahalgam
The biannual report from the Security Council's monitoring team for sanctions on al-Qaeda and Islamic State clearly linked TRF to the Pahalgam attack and warned that terrorist groups could exploit tensions between India and Pakistan.
'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 report said.
'The claim of responsibility was repeated the following day. On 26 April, however, TRF retracted its claim. There was no further communication from TRF, and no other group claimed responsibility. Regional relations remain fragile. There is a risk that terrorist groups may exploit these regional tensions,' it said.
The report comes in the wake of a July 17 move by the US to designate TRF as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and Specially Designated Global Terrorist, citing the Pahalgam terror attack.
When the UN Security Council issued a press statement three days after the Pahalgam attack on April 22 that killed 26 civilians, Pakistan – currently a non-permanent member of the body – blocked any reference to TRF or even to Pahalgam. Pakistan's foreign minister Ishaq Dar subsequently said in Parliament that the country had removed any reference to TRF in the statement.
Dar, however, changed his position after the US designation of TRF as a terrorist organization, and said Pakistan has no objections to this.
The UNSC report stated, without naming specific countries, that one UN member state said the attack 'could not have happened without Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) support, and that there was a relationship between LeT and TRF', while another member state said the 'attack was carried out by TRF, which was synonymous with LeT'.
People familiar with the matter said on condition of anonymity that these two countries were India and the US.
In an obvious reference to Pakistan, the UN Security Council report said: 'Yet one member state rejected these views and said that LeT was defunct.'
Pakistan has for long taken the official position that LeT is 'defunct' since authorities imposed a ban on it. However, the group continues to be active in many cities and regions of Pakistan, raising funds and recruiting cadres while maintaining a low profile.
The people cited above said the latest UN report is notable as all decisions of the 1267 Sanctions Committee, including monitoring team reports, are adopted by consensus by members of the Security Council. 'In other words, Pakistan was unable to prevent a reference to TRF in the report, as they had done in the case of the press statement in April,' a person said.
The 1267 Sanctions Committee monitors sanctions on al-Qaeda, Islamic State and their affiliates. LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) are included under the purview of the 1267 Sanctions Committee because of their links to al-Qaeda dating back to the 1990s.
The people said it was also notable that Pakistan's close ally China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, had not stepped in to block any reference to TRF or LeT in the UN report. In the past, China intervened on behalf of Pakistan to block the listing of Pakistani terrorists at the UN Security Council using what is known as a 'technical hold' or request for more information. In the case of JeM chief Masood Azhar, China blocked his listing by the Security Council for almost a decade before lifting its hold in 2019.
'The inclusion of TRF in the UN report has punctured Pakistan's strategy of plausible deniability by using secular and modern names such as The Resistance Front and People Against Fascist Front for its jihadi proxies. This was done to divert attention from LeT and JeM and give an indigenous guise to its terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir,' a second person said.
The LeT and Pakistan-based terror groups have found mention in the monitoring team's report after several years.
Following the Pahalgam attack, a team of Indian officials travelled to the US in mid-May and briefed the monitoring team of the 1267 Sanctions Committee and other partner countries on the activities of TRF and presented a dossier on the group. The team also met representatives of the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism (UNOCT) and Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) as part of efforts to get TRF designated as a global terror group by the Security Council.
India had also provided information about TRF's role and its links to LeT in half-yearly reports to the monitoring team in May and November 2024. Before this, the monitoring team was informed by the Indian side in December 2023 about the LeT and JeM operating in Jammu and Kashmir through groups such as TRF.
On May 7, India carried out military strikes on terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir under Operation Sindoor in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack. This triggered four days of intense strikes and counter-strikes by the two countries using drones, missiles and long-range weapons before they reached an understanding on halting military actions on May 10.
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