U.S. Designates TRF A Terrorist Organization, Citing Links To LeT

India-West Staff Reporter
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The United States has designated The Resistance Front (TRF) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization and a Specially Designated Global Terrorist, the US State Department announced on July 17. The designation links TRF directly to the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) and follows the group’s claim of responsibility for the April 22 attack in Pahalgam, which killed 26 civilians.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio, announcing the decision, said the move reflects the Trump Administration’s broader counterterrorism strategy and its commitment to “pursuing justice for the victims of the Pahalgam attack.”

The announcement follows diplomatic engagement by India, including high-level meetings by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and a parliamentary delegation led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor, aimed at highlighting TRF’s role in regional instability.

TRF has been identified as a proxy of LeT, a U.S.-designated terrorist group that carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks. The State Department noted that TRF has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks on Indian security personnel in recent years, including incidents in 2024. In one such attack in October 2024, six tunnel workers and a medical worker were killed near Sonamarg.

The U.S. cited national security interests and previous American casualties at the hands of LeT—six Americans were killed during the 2008 Mumbai attacks—as reasons for the new designations.

The SDGT label allows the U.S. to block financial assets linked to the group and its members, while the FTO designation restricts travel and imposes additional legal and financial penalties. Transfers of material support to the group also become prosecutable offenses under U.S. law.