What is The Resistance Front, the militant group linked to Pahalgam attack?

Indian soldiers guard as a tourist take picture with his cell phone on the banks of Dal Lake in Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, on April 24, 2025. (AP)

• Kashmir Resistance has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir
• The group, which emerged in 2019, has not previously had any major incidents attributed to it

Kashmir Resistance, also known as The Resistance Front, has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, the deadliest incident of its kind in India since the 2008 shootings in Mumbai.

Here are some facts about the group.

WHAT IS TRF?

TRF emerged in 2019 and is considered an offshoot of the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to the South Asia Terrorism Portal, a Delhi-based think tank. Islamabad denies it supports any terror groups.

Indian security officials said TRF uses the name Kashmir Resistance on social media and online forums, where it claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Indian Kashmir’s Pahalgam area.

Lashkar-e-Taiba, listed as a foreign terrorist organization by the United States, is the group accused of plotting attacks in India and in the West, including the three-day assault on Mumbai in November 2008.

“This is basically a front of the LeT. These are groups which have been created over the last years, particularly when Pakistan was under pressure from the Financial Action Task Force and they were trying to create a pattern of denial that they were involved in terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir,” said Ajai Sahni, head of the South Asia Terrorism Portal.

WHAT HAS THE GROUP DONE?

The group has not previously had any large incidents attributed to it, according to Sahni.

“All TRF operations are essentially LeT operations. There will be some measure of operational freedom as to where they hit on the ground, but the sanction would have come from the LeT,” Sahni said.

WHAT DOES INDIA SAY ABOUT TRF?

India’s interior ministry told parliament in 2023 that the group had been involved in the planning of killings of security force personnel and civilians in Jammu and Kashmir.
The group also coordinated the recruitment of militants and the smuggling of weapons and narcotics across the border, the ministry said.

Intelligence officials told Reuters that TRF had also been issuing online threats against pro-India groups for the past two years.

WHAT DOES PAKISTAN SAY?

Pakistan has denied that it supports and funds militants in Kashmir, saying it offers only moral and diplomatic support.