Washington, July 18, 2025: The United States has designated The Resistance Front (TRF) a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) following its alleged involvement in the April 22 attack in Indian-administered Kashmir’s Pahalgam, which killed 26 people.
In a statement released Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio described TRF as an offshoot of the proscribed Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and noted that the group had initially claimed responsibility for the attack before later retracting its statement.
“These actions taken by the Department of State demonstrate the Trump Administration’s commitment to protecting our national security interests, countering terrorism, and enforcing President Trump’s call for justice for the Pahalgam attack,” the State Department said.
Rubio also highlighted the move as a reflection of President Donald Trump’s assertive foreign policy stance.
The deadly assault in Pahalgam, a popular tourist resort in Indian-administered Kashmir, marked one of the worst civilian attacks in India since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, which were carried out by LeT militants and claimed over 160 lives.
Following the April attack, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government swiftly blamed Pakistan, accusing it of continuing support for armed groups targeting Indian security forces and civilians. Pakistan has strongly denied any involvement and said the investigations into the incident remain inconclusive.
The cross-border tensions escalated into several days of hostilities, with air and ground skirmishes before a US-brokered ceasefire was reached on May 10. While President Trump claimed credit for mediating the truce, New Delhi has denied any external involvement in its decision-making.
The Kashmir region remains a flashpoint between the two nuclear-armed neighbours, with decades of insurgency, military crackdowns, and allegations of human rights violations deepening the divide. Critics have long pointed to India’s increasingly assertive Hindu nationalist policies, particularly in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley, as a root cause of growing unrest and militancy.
