In a blow to Pakistan’s policy of employing terror as a tool of its regional policy for decades, the United States State Department on 18 July officially designated The Resistance Front (TRF) as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) and Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT). This decision validates what India has long claimed that TRF is not an indigenous militant group, but a proxy for the Pakistan-based jihadi organization Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), which was established to cover up Pakistan’s continued patronisation of terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir.

The US designation follows the ghastly April 22, 2025, Pahalgam attack in which 26 Hindu pilgrims were massacred following religion-based segregation by the terrorists. It was the worst attack on Indian civilians since the 2008 Mumbai attacks, incidentally also mounted by LeT under the broader tutelage of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), as growing body of evidence has substantiated since. When the TRF claimed responsibility for the Pahalgam massacre, it was a grim reminder of Islamabad’s unaltered terror playbook of decades that has seen it patronize groups to mount asymmetric proxy war in Kashmir.

India welcomed the US move, calling it “a timely and important step reflecting the deep cooperation between India and the United States on counter-terrorism.” In a statement, the Ministry of External Affairs emphasized that “India remains committed to a policy of zero tolerance towards terrorism and will continue to work closely with its international partners to ensure that terrorist organizations and their proxies are held accountable.”

The Resistance Front is not a spontaneous insurgent movement. It is a repackaged extension of LeT, launched in 2019 as global scrutiny tightened around Pakistan’s state-sponsored terror ecosystem. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had grey-listed Islamabad in 2018, citing its

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