UN Report Names Terror Group Behind Pahalgam Attack, Pak Cover-Up Shatters

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has, for the first time, officially identified The Resistance Front (TRF) in a sanctions monitoring report as responsible for the terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir's Pahalgam on April 22. The report has explicitly cited TRF's claim of responsibility for the attack that left 26 people dead. 

This is the first time TRF, a proxy group linked to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group, has been named in any formal United Nations document. The report's inclusion of TRF happened despite strong diplomatic resistance from Pakistan.

TRF Claim Documented

According to the Monitoring Team report, five terrorists launched the attack in Pahalgam on April 22. On the same day, TRF claimed responsibility and also published a photograph of the attack site. The group repeated its claim on April 23 but retracted it on April 26. No other group stepped forward to claim the attack.

Despite this retraction, the report notes that at least two member states informed the UN sanctions team that the attack could not have occurred without the support of Lashkar-e-Taiba. One member state explicitly said TRF and LeT were synonymous. A third member state, however, disagreed, claiming that LeT was now defunct.

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack, India launched Operation Sindoor, targeting terror infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK). 

Pakistan's Denial Strategy 

The inclusion of TRF in the UN report comes against the backdrop of Pakistan's attempts to manipulate language in official UNSC documents. Pakistan's Foreign Minister had boasted in the Pakistan National Assembly about achieving this retraction.

The Monitoring Team's report now directly contradicts that claim and restores the reference to TRF in the official UN record. 

"Pakistan's strategy of plausible deniability -- using secular and modern names like 'The Resistance Front' and 'People Against Fascist Front' for its proxies to divert attention from LeT/JeM and give an indigenous appearance to its terrorist activities in Jammu & Kashmir - now stands punctured," sources said. 

Strategic Implications of MT Report

India views the inclusion of TRF in the Monitoring Team's findings as a strategic diplomatic victory. Unlike press statements, MT reports are adopted by consensus among the members of the UN Security Council and are harder to influence.

This inclusion not only marks TRF's first mention in any UN document but also reintroduces LeT-linked activity in UN records for the first time since 2019. 

US Designates TRF As Global Terrorist Entity

This month, the United States designated TRF as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and added it to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT), citing its links with Lashkar-e-Taiba. The designation was issued by the US Department of State on July 17.

"When the Security Council was debating this on April 25, and TRF had twice claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam attack, Pakistan defended the TRF. Pakistan tried to get any mention of TRF excluded, and in fact, the Pakistani Foreign Minister told his Parliament that this is a great diplomatic achievement. Now, I mention it because today, again, thanks to our diplomacy, the TRF has been designated as a global terrorist organisation by the US government, and the same Pakistani Foreign Minister, who took so much pride saying 'I defended the TRF', says well, 'now if the US has done this, we accept it,'" said External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in the Lok Sabha on July 28. 

Mr Jaishankar also mentioned the extradition of Tahawwur Rana, a US national wanted in connection with the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. "People asked where our diplomacy was. I say Rana is in Indian custody because of that diplomacy," he told the Lok Sabha.

Threat Assessment

The UN report says that ISIL-Khorasan (ISIL-K) continues to pose the most serious threat across Central and South Asia, with an estimated 2,000 fighters and growing influence in Afghanistan and neighbouring states. ISIL-K has reportedly indoctrinated minors and established suicide training courses for children as young as 14.

Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with around 6,000 fighters, is said to be receiving significant support from Afghan authorities. Some states have reported that TTP continues to cooperate tactically with ISIL-K.