UNSC report names Pak-based TRF for Pahalgam terror attack

In a significant development, a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) monitoring team has directly implicated The Resistance Front (TRF), a Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) affiliate based in Pakistan, in the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack on. This marks the first time since 2019 that the UN has named LeT or its factions in its reports.

The move comes just weeks after the US officially designated TRF as a terrorist organisation.  The report describes how five terrorists targeted a tourist location in Pahalgam, killing 26 civilians. While the TRF initially claimed responsibility and even circulated photographic evidence, it retracted its claim four days later. The UN report warns, “Regional relations (India-Pakistan) remain fragile. There is a risk that terrorist groups may exploit these regional tensions.”

The findings are significant as all decisions of the Sanctions Committee set up under UNSC resolution 1267, including reports of the monitoring team, are adopted by consensus in the UNSC, where Pakistan currently holds the rotating presidency. Earlier, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar had boasted in the National Assembly about successfully pressuring the UNSC to omit references to the TRF in a statement condemning the attack.

Pakistan has long employed a strategy of “plausible deniability”, rebranding jihadist proxies like the TRF and People Against Fascist Front with secular-sounding names to mask their ties to LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed while projecting terrorism in Jammu & Kashmir as an indigenous movement.

India has intensified diplomatic efforts to expose these links, with the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) submitting detailed evidence since December 2023. In 2024 alone, the MEA provided two sets of inputs on TRF’s activities and its LeT connections. An inter-ministerial delegation also briefed the UNSC monitoring team and key member states in New York in May 2024, sharing a dossier on the TRF.

The report underscores growing international recognition of Pakistan’s obstruction of counter-terrorism efforts and the threat posed by its terror proxies. The UNSC monitoring team, established in 1999 under Resolution 1267 to oversee sanctions against terrorist entities like Al-Qaida, has progressively expanded its mandate to include groups like ISIS and LeT.