Srinagar, Jul 18: The Resistance Front (TRF) emerged in Jammu and Kashmir after the abrogation of Article 370 in 2019 and is today amongst the deadliest terror groups in the region with former Pakistani Special Service Group (SSG) commandos in its ranks, intelligence sources said on Friday.
TRF, a proxy of Pakistan-based terror group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which claimed responsibility for the April 22 Pahalgam terror attack, was on Thursday added as a designated Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) by the US State Department.
Besides the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed, the group is also confirmed to be involved in four other major attacks in the past two years.
These are the attack on pilgrims in Reasi in June 2024, on migrant construction workers in the Z-Morh tunnel (also known as the Sonamarg tunnel) in Ganderbal in October 2024; the September 13, 2023 Kokernag encounter that left a colonel, a major and a deputy superintendent of police dead; and the July 8, 2020 attack on a BJP leader killing him and two of his family members in Bandipora district.
The attacks in Reasi and Ganderbal left 16 persons, including seven pilgrims, dead and scores of others injured, sources told PTI.
Marketed by Pakistan’s information warfare machinery as a “homegrown” insurgent outfit, the TRF is a proxy arm of LeT created to give militancy in Kashmir a more “localised” appearance.
The TRF was founded in October 2019, with Sheikh Sajjad Gul as its Supreme Commander, Mohammad Abbass Sheikh as the founding chief and Basit Ahmed Dar as the chief operational commander. Both Abbass and Dar, local terrorists, were eliminated by the security forces in separate operations in August 23, 2021 and May 7, 2024, in the valley respectively.
It has escalated its operations in J-K with a noticeable shift in targeting strategy. Traditionally focused on security forces and political figures, TRF began to target infrastructure projects and civilians, including non-local labourers and tourists, in late 2024 and early 2025.
Intelligence intercepts, human sources and forensic digital trail pointed to the TRF acting on direct instructions from the Pakistani military establishment, the sources said, adding that the timing of the Pahalgam attack coincided with rising domestic unrest in Pakistan and global criticism of its army’s crackdown on democratic forces revealed the true objective — deflection and diversion.
The officials said the Pahalgam attack marked a significant development in the TRF’s tactics. Five attackers, allegedly affiliated to a TRF unit called the ‘Falcon Squad’, infiltrated the Pahalgam area dressed in military camouflage, armed with military-grade weapons and advanced communication devices.
The survivors reported that the assailants specifically targeted Hindu males, inspecting for religious markers such as names and circumcision, and demanding that the victims recite Kalma, the Islamic declaration of faith.
The attackers used helmet-mounted cameras and operated in a swift “hit-and-run” style, retreating into the forested terrain to evade capture, the sources said.
The security agencies have identified the attackers’ leader as Hashim Musa alias Asif Fauji, reportedly a former Pakistani SSG commando, with support from another Pakistani national, Ali Bhai. The attack was allegedly orchestrated by Saifullah Kasuri alias Khalid, a senior LeT commander and close aide of globally designated terrorist Hafiz Saeed, officials said.
They said the digital footprints of the attackers traced back to safe houses across the border in Muzaffarabad and Karachi, suggesting deep logistical coordination with LeT infrastructure in Pakistan.
They said the targeting of tourists in Pahalgam marks a potential shift in the operational policy of Kashmiri militant groups, signalling a willingness to expand attacks beyond government personnel and settlers to include civilian visitors under a broader strategy to destabilise the region, discourage tourism and deepen communal divisions.
The use of highly trained, locally recruited militants under the ‘Falcon Squad’ indicates a growing reliance on decentralised, hard-to-trace operatives, raising concerns about future threats to both regional security and civilian life in J-K, they said.
In the Ganderbal attack, two to three attackers entered the camp with rifles, including an M4 Carbine assault rifle and an AK-47 and opened fire. Unlike the Pahalgam attack, which isolated the non-Muslim men, the gunmen reportedly opened fire indiscriminately, killing six persons, including a local doctor.
This noted the “strategic” value of the TRF targeting a “billion-dollar tunnel project”.
“These attacks are believed to reflect growing hostility toward what the group perceives as demographic change and Indian federal consolidation in the region. Social media posts from pro-separatist accounts such as Kashmir Fight FalconX in 2024 and 2025 increasingly framed non-local civilians, especially migrant workers and tourists, as ‘settler colonists’ involved in the ‘illegal occupation’ of Kashmir,” they said.
The Union Home Ministry officially designated the TRF as a terrorist organisation under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in January 2023.
The sources said the formation of the TRF is a textbook example of Pakistan’s longstanding modus operandi – rebranding terror outfits to escape international scrutiny and maintain plausible deniability, while continuing its strategy of cross-border terrorism under the garb of local resistance.
The sources said TRF is merely the latest mask worn by LeT, and Pakistan Field Marshal Gen Asim Munir is the architect of this bloody theatre.–(PTI)
