UNSC sanctions monitoring report out: India scores diplomatic victory as UN report links Pakistan-based TRF to Pahalgam terror attack

New Delhi, Jul 30: In a diplomatic breakthrough for India, a recent report by the UN Security Council’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team has, for the first time, named The Resistance Front (TRF), a Pakistan-based proxy outfit of Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), in connection with the April 22 terrorist attack in Pahalgam, J&K, where 26 civilians were killed.

The 36th report of the Monitoring Team, submitted under the UN Security Council’s 1267 Sanctions Committee on ISIL (Da’esh), Al-Qaida and associated entities, explicitly refers to the TRF’s involvement in the Pahalgam attack, a first in any UN document. The TRF had initially claimed responsibility and circulated a photograph of the attack site, but curiously retracted the claim four days later on April 26. “There was no further communication from TRF, and no other group claimed responsibility,” the report noted.

The Monitoring Team report was submitted on July 21, 2025, to the Chair of the UNSC 1267 Sanctions Committee, Ambassador Christina Markus Lassen, and issued as an official document of the UN Security Council.

The report further reveals that one Member State pointed out that the attack could not have occurred without the support of LeT, adding that TRF was essentially synonymous with LeT. Another Member State rejected this view, calling LeT “defunct.” The mention of such divergent views, however, did not stop the UN Monitoring Team from recording TRF’s initial claim and associating it with LeT-backed violence in Kashmir.

Indian diplomatic sources described the development as “a hard-fought and clear validation of what we have always maintained, that TRF is a front for Pakistan-based terror groups and their actions are not home-grown, but state-enabled.”

The inclusion of TRF in the UN report is particularly significant given that all decisions of the 1267 Sanctions Committee, including Monitoring Team (MT) reports, are adopted by consensus. The report’s findings come in stark contrast to recent comments by Pakistan’s Foreign Minister in the National Assembly, where he had claimed that Pakistan had successfully removed references to TRF from the UNSC press statement issued after the Pahalgam attack. Indian officials see the new report as a “global rebuttal” to Pakistan’s repeated attempts to rebrand its terror proxies under secular-sounding aliases such as TRF or “People Against Fascist Front” in an effort to project these groups as indigenous movements. “That strategy has now been punctured on the floor of the world’s highest security platform,” said a senior official from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

Sustained diplomatic push from India

The breakthrough is the result of sustained diplomatic engagement. According to MEA officials, India has been consistently providing detailed inputs on TRF and other Pakistan-backed proxies since December 2023. In 2024 alone, India made two formal submissions to the Monitoring Team regarding TRF’s activities and its operational ties with LeT. In May 2024, an inter-ministerial delegation led by MEA travelled to New York to brief the UN Monitoring Team and senior officials. The delegation also submitted a comprehensive dossier on TRF’s structure, finances, and operations. Indian missions across key capitals, along with parliamentary delegations, also raised TRF’s role in meetings with Security Council members. “This outcome is a testament to India’s credibility on counter-terrorism and the growing convergence with like-minded countries on the need to isolate state-sponsored terror,” an MEA spokesperson said.

A shift in UN discourse

This is the first time since 2019 that any Pakistan-based terror group, including LeT, has been mentioned in the Monitoring Team report. “The placement of the TRF section as the lead entry in the Asia segment underlines the gravity of the Pahalgam attack and the UN’s recognition of the regional threat posed by these actors,” said an Indian official familiar with the developments. The Monitoring Team’s report also issues a warning: “Regional relations remain fragile. There is a risk that terrorist groups may exploit these regional tensions.” For India, the inclusion of TRF in the UN report not only vindicates its long-standing position but also shines a spotlight on Pakistan’s continued use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool. “This is not just a diplomatic win for India, but also a moment of reckoning for the international community. It underscores the urgent need to hold Pakistan accountable for providing safe havens and platforms to globally sanctioned terror entities,” a former Indian envoy to the UN remarked. With this development, India is expected to step up its efforts to formally list TRF under the 1267 Sanctions Committee, a move that would impose global travel bans, asset freezes and arms embargoes on the group and its leaders.