Category World News

New Delhi, India — Even as news of the deadliest attack on Indian-administered Kashmir’s tourists in decades filtered in on social media platforms and television screens, a message appeared on Telegram chats.

The Resistance Front (TRF), a little-known armed group that emerged in the region in 2019, claimed responsibility for the attack in which at least 26 tourists were killed and more than a dozen others were injured on Tuesday.

Armed rebels, who have been fighting for Kashmir’s secession from India, had largely spared tourists from their attacks in recent years. Tuesday’s killings changed that.

But what is TRF, and what influence does it wield in Kashmir? And what is at stake for the Indian administration in Kashmir now?

What happened on Tuesday?

On a pleasant, sunny afternoon in the Baisaran meadow of Pahalgam town in Kashmir, tourists came under attack from gunmen who emerged from a nearby forest.

The men armed with automatic rifles shot at least 26 tourists dead and injured several others. All those killed were men.

India’s home minister, Amit Shah, reached Srinagar, the summer capital of the disputed region, as condolences poured in from world leaders, including United States President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on social media that “those behind this heinous act will be brought to justice … they will not be spared!”

By then, TRF had claimed responsibility for the attack, even as the armed attackers who carried out the killings remained on the run.

What is TRF?

In a message that appeared on Telegram, TRF opposed the granting of residency permits to “outsiders”, who critics say could help India change the demography of the disputed region. “Consequently, violence will be directed toward those attempting to settle illegally,” it said.

Though the targets of the attack were tourists — not newly arrived residents making Kashmir their home — the group’s choice of Telegram to claim responsibility did not surprise security officials.

TRF is still, at times, referred to as “the virtual front” inside the security apparatus in Kashmir, for that is how it started.

After the Indian government unilaterally revoked Kashmir’s partial autonomy in August 2019 and imposed a months-long clampdown, the group first took shape by starting messaging on social media. In reorganising Kashmir, the government also extended domicile status, which allows land owning rights and access to government-sponsored job quotas, to non-locals — the purported justification for the Pahalgam attack.

The name The Resistance Front is a break from traditional rebel groups in Kashmir, most of which bear Islamic names. This, Indian intelligence agencies believe, was aimed at projecting “a neutral character, with ‘resistance’ in name focused on Kashmiri nationalism”, said a police officer, who has worked on cases involving armed groups for nearly a decade, requesting anonymity.

However, Indian officials have consistently maintained that, in reality, TRF is an offshoot — or just a front — of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based armed group. India says Pakistan supports the armed rebellion in Kashmir, a charge denied by Islamabad. Pakistan says it provides only diplomatic and moral support to the Kashmiri people. It also condemned the attack on tourists in Pahalgam.

Some Indian officials said they believe Tuesday’s attack may actually have been the handiwork of the Lashkar-e-Taiba, with TRF fronting responsibility to muddy India’s investigations into the killings.

Has TRF carried out attacks in the past?

By 2020, the group started taking responsibility for minor attacks, including targeted killings of individuals. Its recruits consisted of fighters from an amalgam of splinter rebel groups. Since then, Indian security agencies have busted multiple groups of TRF fighters.

But the group survived and grew.

By 2022, a majority of the armed fighters killed in gunfights in Kashmir were affiliated with TRF, according to government records. TRF members were increasingly using small arms such as pistols to carry out targeted killings, including those of retired security personnel and people accused of being informers.

The group also made headlines that year after it named Kashmiri journalists on a “traitor hit list” for allegedly colluding with the Indian state. At least five of the named journalists resigned immediately, as there is a history of such attacks. Shujaat Bukhari, a prominent Kashmiri journalist and editor of the Rising Kashmir publication, was assassinated on June 14, 2018, outside his office in Srinagar. The Kashmir police have attributed the killing to the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

In June 2024, TRF also claimed responsibility for an attack on a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims, killing at least nine people and injuring 33, in Jammu’s Reasi area. The bus had plunged into a gorge during the attack.

How is TRF different?

As TRF made its mark with its deadly attacks, it also used a mix of old and new strategies. Its English name stood out, as did its social media usage. But in other ways, it relied on more traditional techniques.

Before TRF’s arrival, Kashmiri rebel commanders had, since 2014, increasingly adopted more public personas. Their groups would post videos on social media of their commanders casually walking through apple orchards, playing cricket, or riding a bike in Srinagar. This social media outreach led to a surge in recruitment. Among the commanders who adopted this method was Burhan Wani, whose killing in July 2016 led to an uprising, during which more than 100 civilians were killed in street protests.

But after the 2019 crackdown, this approach no longer worked. TRF fighters, the newcomers on the scene, returned to tried and tested ways. “The faces were again hidden; the number of attacks fell, but the intensity became sharper,” said the police officer who requested anonymity.

Under the leadership of Mohammad Abbas Sheikh, one of the oldest Kashmiri fighters — he is reported to have joined the rebellion in 1996 — the group focused its attacks on Srinagar.

After his killing in 2021, and the killings of many other armed rebels in the subsequent year, TRF retreated with its fighters to jungles higher up in the mountains, a central intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.

In January 2023, the Indian government declared TRF a “terrorist organisation”, citing the recruitment of rebels and smuggling of weapons from Pakistan into Kashmir.

As more and more TRF fighters were killed by security agencies, their numbers dwindled. The rebels, according to the police and intelligence officials, were well trained but largely stayed in their high-altitude hideouts.

What does the attack mean for Modi’s Kashmir policy?

Yet, if Indian security and intelligence agencies were caught off guard by the attack, some experts believe that is the outcome of holes in the Modi government’s Kashmir policy.

Modi and Home Minister Shah, who is responsible for law and order and widely seen as Modi’s deputy, have repeatedly made claims of “normalcy” in Kashmir since the region’s semi-autonomous status was revoked in 2019.

It was that assurance and the promotion of tourism by the Indian government that drove Kailash Sethi to Kashmir this summer with his family. Now, he is frantically looking to leave the region as soon as possible.

“We were in Pahalgam just two days ago, at the same place where the attack happened,” Sethi, who is from Jamnagar in the western state of Gujarat, told Al Jazeera from Srinagar. “I cannot tell you how scared I am right now. I just want to take out my family.”

On Wednesday, panic gripped tour and travel operators as visitors rushed to cancel their bookings and return home. Traffic jammed the roads to Srinagar airport, and prices to fly out of Kashmir increased by more than 300 percent.

“There is no normalcy in Kashmir. And this ‘normalcy’ narrative is the most unfortunate thing about the Kashmir policy of this government,” said Ajai Sahni, executive director of South Asia Terrorism Portal, a platform that tracks and analyses armed attacks in South Asia.

“First, zero militancy in Kashmir is an impossible objective to realise, at least in the absence of a political solution within the state,” said Sahni. “Secondly, the ‘normalcy narrative’ creates a situation where groups are encouraged to engineer attacks.” That, he said, is because they know that “even if a small attack occurs, it is not normal any more”.

Apart from occasional attacks, rebel groups had largely spared the tourism industry so far, added Sahni. “This also led to a level of complacency, perhaps, in the security apparatus,” he said, adding that “this is a very abrupt escalation on the part of TRF”.

By Tuesday evening, as the dead and injured were brought down on horseback and military vehicles, the police had sealed the resort town of Pahalgam. Several areas in Kashmir, including Srinagar, witnessed a shutdown after traders’ associations and political parties called for collective mourning.

Raul, who works in the hospitality sector in Pahalgam and requested he be identified by his first name only, said he remains anxious for the future. “There will be crackdowns and the increased presence of armed forces in the area again,” he said. “Everyone, my clients, just wants to get out of Kashmir.”

Rev. Munther Isaac reflects on Pope Francis’s passing and what his voice meant to Palestinians and people under oppression.

The leader of Canada’s Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, would like to say a word about politics if you had doubts about the old saying that it could be a “fickle business.”

A series of happy months later, a slew of polls revealed that Poilievre, who had a staggering plurality to boot, appeared to be poised to become the nation’s next prime minister.

Justin Trudeau, Canada’s overspending prime minister, was concerned about the ever-increasing cost of living, from groceries to homes, in general.

Poilievre and his shadow cabinet abused the current era and appeared determined to oust an ailing Liberal Party from a political reckoning that was brutal and resolute.

Then, Donald Trump re-entered the White House, threatening to make Canada the union’s 51st state.

Political terrain and the stakes suddenly shifted, disorienting, and shifting. Liberals profited from the election by removing Trudeau and appointing Mark Carney as their “serious” replacement for Trump.

Liberal fortunes have turned a stunning volte-face with election day approaching. The party has slightly slipped ahead after initially trailing far behind like a harmed racehorse limping to the finish line.

However, Carney and the cocksure company should remember that there are no guarantees in life or politics beyond taxes.

In some polls, the lead is reclaimed by Conservatives in a tightening debate.

The state-sponsored genocide devouring Palestine and Palestinians with such ruthless and inhumane efficiency is the defining issue of these terrible times, even though the subject of the short campaign was the existential threat that a former continental confederate poses to Canada’s sovereignty.

The same enraged and determined Canadians have made it clear that the established political parties in Canada must take note of the genocide, or they will suffer the unavoidable and harsh consequences.

Scores of Canadians reaffirmed their resolve last week in Ottawa by calling on the country’s political leaders to answer for their continued denial of the genocide against Israel and forbid the Israeli government from putting pressure on Tel Aviv to put an end to the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank.

A concerned Canadian said, “We are here in Ottawa to demand a two-way arms embargo,” and to tell all politicians that they would not receive a single vote from any of our communities.

Of course, the concerned Canadian is not the only one.

In a show of support for their besieged brothers and sisters in Palestine, thousands of like-minded Canadians have joined them and donated time, money, and energy to encourage the movement to mobilize Arab and Muslim voters all over Canada on April 28 in their country and across Canada.

The overarching goal of fixing Palestine and Palestinians’ fate is at the center of Canada’s political dialogue, which includes large, national, and politically active grassroots movements like #ElectPalestine, MuslimsVote, and Vote Palestine.

Finally, they must be heard and looked after.

What little of its vacuous currency has lost because of the predictable cultural condescension, which includes quick, election-time visits to mosques and cliche-ridden rhetoric meant to convey tissue-thin “sympathy” for Palestinians’ “sad” plight.

Instead, powerful electorates want the “major” political parties of Canada to reevaluate fundamentally and unequivocally their long-standing support for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an indicted war criminal, and outright reject his oft-repeated, international law-desecrating goal of reducing Palestine to dust and memory.

The “Uncommitted” cause being gaining steam in Canada recalls the Arab and Muslim candidates who warned the Democratic Party and Kamala Harris, its standard bearer, that they were going to lose votes in crucial swing states by continuing to arm and provide diplomatic cover to Netanyahu during the 2024 US presidential election.

Harris ignored the need to stir up the conversation and, as a result, forfeited the presidency to appease Israel, its American evangelical supporters, and Netanyahu’s grotesque strategic objectives.

Her reward

Trump has embraced him like a brother-in-genocidal-arms, thanks to an energized Netanyahu.

In 2028, the Democratic Party may or may not have learned an important lesson that could have a significant impact on its shariah-holding on Israel.

We’ll see more information in due course.

In the meantime, Carney and Poilievre have been practising Harris’ mocking of Canadian voters’ pressing concerns.

Poilievre refers to mass pro-Palestinian protests as “hate marches,” calling them crude, irredeemable honorary Zionist zealots.

A concerned Canadian who asked the prime minister, “Why are you sending weapons to Israel via the US to kill our families,?” confronted Carney at a rally in Ontario earlier this month.

Carney responded with silence.

The decision-making process between the prime minister and his handlers should be informed by the fact that the majority government in Canada will be determined by the candidate.

In 90 electoral districts across Canada, Arab and Muslim voters make up a sizable portion of the electorate, and more than 40 seats could be topped of that number.

Carney, a career-long numbersman, is well aware that dismissing or alienating many Canadians in their many ridings only leads to disappointment and potential peril.

Carney can use this as a model for winning over Canadians who want to cast ballots with Gaza and the West Bank in their minds and hearts, according to a recent public opinion survey conducted by the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).

A ban on exporting weapons to Israel is supported by more than half of Canadians. Fast 50% of people want that ban to become a full-fledged two-way embargo, which is even more telling.

These are not arbitrary conclusions. They represent a growing consensus among Canadians who are sick of their leaders using moral deception.

Carney has largely accepted Canada’s so-called “balanced” approach as hedge-bearing. Hedging and calculated complicity will no longer be sufficient, though.

Through their silence and inaction, Canada’s political elites have condemned the humanitarian catastrophe being waged against innocent people in the shattered remnants of Palestine.

70 percent of liberal voters concur that Canada should recognize the ICC’s (ICC) arrest warrants for Yoav Gallant and Netanyahu, and that 56% of Canadians also support the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) arrest warrants.

Carney needs to do much more than support Melanie Joly, the country’s foreign minister,’s March, arms embargo.

Carney must support a two-way ban, stand with and for the ICC, and make it clear that Canada will not be a haven for alleged war criminals if he wants justice.

Anything less and Carney will have treated Arab and Muslim Canadians with his predecessors’ signature scorn, even when the polls are once again favorable.

Carney still has the right to make the right decisions at the right time and for the right reasons.

The prime minister will probably waste the opportunity, in my opinion. Like Kamala Harris, Mark Carney must pay a price that will endure forever.

Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz declared last week that “no humanitarian aid will enter Gaza”, effectively announcing his government’s intention to continue the collective punishment of the Palestinian enclave’s battered and besieged civilian population in blatant violation of international humanitarian law.

“Blocking this aid is one of the main pressure levers preventing Hamas from using it as a tool with the population,” he went on to say, “No one is currently planning to allow any humanitarian aid into Gaza, and there are no preparations to enable such aid.”

Many leading NGOs and international institutions, such as Amnesty and Human Rights Watch, have long identified Israel’s weaponisation of aid in Gaza as an act of genocide. In response to Katz’s most recent comments, they once again condemned the Israeli government’s genocidal policies and called on Israel’s Western allies to take action to enforce international law.

Such condemnations and calls to action, however, are clearly failing to produce the desired results. After 18 devastating months, Israel is still bombing, shooting at, displacing and starving Palestinians, while openly declaring its intention to continue with these crimes for the foreseeable future. And it is still doing so with the full political, military and diplomatic backing of its Western allies, including Britain.

This is why we believe it is time for British NGOs to change tack.

For the past 18 months, many of us working in the human rights and aid sectors in Britain made repeated requests to our government to do the bare minimum and enforce the basic tenets of international law on its ally, Israel. We campaigned, we lobbied, we engaged, and we explained. We showed the evidence, pointed to the law, and asked our leaders to do the right thing. Our pleas fell on deaf ears. We’ve been met with nothing but indifference.

To this day, Keir Starmer’s government continues to trade with and even sell arms to the Israeli government, despite being aware of the blatant crimes Israel commits day after day in Gaza and in the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories. It still considers Israel a key ally despite knowing that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is reviewing an allegation of genocide directed at its “war” in Gaza and that there is an International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrant out for its prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for various war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Just last week,  Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy held talks with Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar – the top diplomat of a government under investigation for genocide – while he was on an unannounced visit to London. The Foreign Ministry confirmed that Lammy met Sa’ar to “discuss Gaza and other pressing Middle East issues”, during what it described as the Israeli minister’s “private visit to the UK”.

This is unacceptable. British government officials should not be having any public or private meetings with senior ministers from a country accused of the most heinous crimes recognised in international law. They must not be “discussing Gaza and other pressing Middle East issues” with Israeli leaders while Israel continues to bomb refugee tents, kill journalists and medics, and block the delivery of aid to a population under relentless siege.

No politician can claim ignorance of what is happening. Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been killed. Many more have been maimed, traumatised and displaced. Hospitals, clinics, refugee camps, schools, universities, residential neighbourhoods, water and food facilities have been destroyed. Hundreds of aid workers – both local and foreign, including Brits – have been targeted and killed, for the crime of trying to help Palestinians.

The British public at large is horrified by what Israel is doing in the occupied Palestinian territories, and they want it to stop. We have seen this in various opinion polls and on the streets in the form of enormous protests.

And yet, our government is intransigent. The meetings that so many aid and human rights organisations had with ministers and senior civil servants – difficult to get in the first place – have had no impact. Starmer’s government is impervious to all the normal lobbying and campaign tools we employ. It is refusing to hold Israel to account for its blatant violations of international law.

It is time for us to try a different strategy. We cannot continue to engage with the British government as if we are merely having a policy disagreement. This is not a routine case of our government refusing to pay sufficient attention to a conflict or crisis, due to different priorities or conflicting interests. This is not a disagreement we can overcome through engagement and debate. Britain’s leaders today are not only ignoring the most heinous war crimes being livestreamed on our screens on a daily basis, but also insisting on supporting the perpetrators of these crimes – diplomatically, politically and militarily – against warnings and desperate pleas from the human rights sector.

We believe the only way NGOs can actually make a difference in this space is by ending all engagement with the government on this issue. By continuing to talk to the government, we are not helping Palestinians on the ground or our colleagues working with a target on their backs in Gaza. We are merely providing the government with an opportunity to say it is doing something to help those stuck in Israel’s kill zone.

We must not participate in processes and engagements that will be used to whitewash Britain’s complicity in Israel’s crimes.

Rather than trying to talk to a government that has no intention of listening, we should support protests, boycotts and legal efforts to hold Israel’s leaders to account for their role in the genocide. The British government may not be willing to pay attention to our campaigns and reports, but they will eventually pay attention to the ever-growing protests on the streets and the legal decisions against their Israeli allies in British and international courts. At this point in time, continuing a dialogue with the government will only turn us into instruments of British foreign policy.

There is only one way forward. We must loudly name what’s happening in Gaza – a genocide. We should name the crime, underline our government’s complicity in it, and focus our efforts on elevating the voices of our Palestinian colleagues on the ground. Meetings with ministers and civil servants behind closed doors will not make a difference, but informing the public of what is actually happening in Gaza, with support from our government, just may.

We know that our actions cannot magically put an end to the genocide in occupied Palestine, but they can still make a difference. We can add to the pressure on those who have the power to stop the carnage, which is so needed. Additionally, stopping our fruitless engagements with the government will allow us to reorient our work, reconnect with the wider public from whom we should draw our legitimacy and strength, and focus our energy on actions that can make a real difference for people in need.

The actions we, as members of the aid and human rights sector in Britain, take now, do not only matter to those in Gaza. The way our government, our leading institutions and our society at large deal with the genocide in Gaza will set a precedent for how they will deal with crises and emergencies in the future – at home and abroad. It will determine whether our country will be a force that works to uphold human rights and international law, or one that tramples on them whenever convenient. Today, we must all fight for what is right, and show our government that indifference is not acceptable in the face of genocide, lest we ourselves become complicit. History will judge how we respond to this moment.