New Delhi: The Resistance Front, “a proxy of the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terror group”, has found a mention in a UN Security Council (UNSC) report for its role in the Pahalgam attack.
The report by the UNSC’s Monitoring Team (MT) quoted one unnamed member state as saying that the April 22 terror attack in Jammu and Kashmir could not have happened without LeT’s support and that there was a relationship between “LeT and The Resistance Front (TRF)”.
This is the first time that a UNSC report named the TRF.
The report for the UNSC’s 1267 committee that deals with sanctions on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State linked the TRF to the Pahalgam attack and cautioned that the 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 development is significant as all decisions of the UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee, including reports, are adopted by consensus by the members of the top body of the UN, people familiar with the matter said on Wednesday.
The Pakistan foreign minister boasted in the Pakistan National Assembly about forcing the removal of references to TRF in the UNSC press statement condemning the Pahalgam attack, they recalled.
The report quoted another member state as saying that the Pahalgam attack was carried out by TRF, which was “synonymous with LeT”.
“One member state rejected these views and said that LeT was defunct,” it said.
The member state which claimed that LeT was defunct largely appears to be Pakistan.
The UNSC’s 1267 Sanctions Committee is tasked to implement sanctions against terrorists, terror groups, and entities.
The people cited above 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 and JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed) terror groups and give an indigenous appearance to its terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir — now stands “punctured”.
This also marks the first mention of the LeT and Pakistan-based terror groups in the report since 2019.
“The inclusion of TRF in the MT report despite Pakistan’s efforts for its removal highlights Pakistan’s undeniable involvement in fomenting terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir,” said one of the people cited above.
It also attests to our credibility in the UN on the counter-terror front, the person said.
It is notable that Pakistan’s all-weather friend China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, did not block the references to TRF or LeT in the UN report, said one of the people cited above.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Tuesday said in Lok Sabha that the three terrorists killed in Operation Mahadev in Jammu and Kashmir on Monday were those who carried out the Pahalgam strike.
