LeT’s proxy TRF has skilled terrorists from Lashkar’s core group: Intelligence officials

The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of Pakistani terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), which claimed responsibility for the Tuesday attack on tourists in Pahalgam, has a history of targeting civilians in Jammu and Kashmir, including migrant workers and Kashmiri Pandits, over the last three to four years.

The TRF is also responsible for the twin-drone strikes on the Jammu Indian Air Force (IAF) station in June 2021, as well as many incidents of dropping weapons and explosives using unmanned aerial vehicles delivered from over the border. However, various evaluations by Indian intelligence agencies suggest that TRF is just the main LeT group. "All of these attacks on civilians since 2020 have been carried out by highly skilled terrorists from the LeT.

Following the Pulwama assault and the repeal of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir, anti-India strategists in Pakistan's Army and ISI came up with the term 'TRF' in 2019 to avoid inspection from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), according to a counterterrorism official. It has frequently exposed information against Indian officials, Kashmiri Pandits, and others on social media, and has threatened former Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad during a series of protests during the J&K assembly elections.