Tensions between India and Pakistan are higher than those for decades, as both countries have blamed each other's territory in the past few days. At the heart of the dispute is India’s claim to Pakistan’s support for armed separatist groups operating in Kashmir, a disputed area between the two countries.
An armed group called the Resistance Front (TRF) claimed responsibility for the Pahargam attack in the Indian-managed Kashmir attack, with 26 people killed last month. India claims that the TRF is a branch of another Pakistan-based armed group, Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let), and accuses Pakistan of supporting such groups.
Pakistan denies this. It condemned the April attack and called for an independent investigation.
Here is more information about who the armed groups are and the main attacks they claim or are accused of.
After the Indian government suspended Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the TRF appeared in 2019, depriving Indian-managed Kashmir of its semi-autonomous status.
However, the group was not well known before the Pahalgam attack, which was responsible in April through the Telegram Messaging App, which expressed opposition to granting "outsiders" with the residence permit.
Since the abolition of Article 370, non-Kashmir people have obtained residence permits to settle in Kashmir, which is managed in India. This has raised concerns that the Indian government is trying to change the demographics of Kashmir, whose population is almost entirely Muslim.
Unlike other armed rebel groups in Kashmir, the TRF does not have an Islamic name.
However, the Indian government insists that this is a branch of Pakistan's armed group Lashkar-e-Taiba (Let), or the front line, whose name is "Pure Army".
In 2020, the TRF began claiming responsibility for small attacks, including some targeted killings. TRF recruits include rebels from different division rebel groups. Indian security personnel said they have since arrested several TRF members.
According to the Indian government's records, most of the armed fighters who died in the Kashmir gunfight are affiliated with the TRF in 2022.
Let's demanded the "liberation" of Indian-managed Kashmir, founded around 1990 by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, also known as Hafiz Saeed.
In 2008, armed gunmen opened fire at multiple locations in Mumbai, India, killing 166 people. Ajmal Kasab, the only captive attacker who was alive, said the attacker was a member of Let. Saeed denied being involved in the attack. Kasab was executed in India in 2012.
India also accused Pakistani intelligence agencies of conducting the attack. Although Pakistan admitted that the attack might have been partially planned on Pakistani soil, it insisted that its government and intelligence agencies were not involved.
According to the United Nations, LET also participated in the 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament and the 2006 attack on the Mumbai commuter train, killing 189 people.
On May 7, India launched a missile attack on several Pakistani cities and Pakistan-managed Kashmir. One of these cities is Muridek, Punjab Province. India claims Muridke is the site of Jamat-ud-Dawa's headquarters.
Last week, Indian troops claimed it attacked the Markaz Taiba camp in Muridke. The Army also claimed that Casab had trained at the camp.
Pakistan said let us be banned. Pakistan also re-sents the ban on Jamat Ud Dawa after the 2019 attack on Pulwama, India-managed Kashmir. Saeed, arrested in 2019 and detained by the Pakistani government, was sentenced to 31 years in jail after being convicted in two "terrorist financing" cases.
Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM), or "Muhammad Army", was founded by Masood Azhar, who was released from Indian prisons in 1999.
Azhar, arrested on "terrorism" charges, was released in exchange for 155 hostages held by hijackers of Air India aircraft.
Azhar previously fought under the banner of a group called Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, which called on Kashmir to unite with Pakistan and have links with Al Qaeda.
According to the UN Security Council, Jem also has links with Al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.
Pakistan banned Jem and Let in 2002 and was accused of 2001 attacks on the Indian Parliament.
The British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was also convicted in 2002 for the killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl and is also a member of Jem. Pearl is the South Asia Director of the Wall Street Journal. However, a 2011 report released by Georgetown University's Pearl Project said its own investigation claimed that the pearl was not murdered by Sheikh. The report said Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attack, was in charge. In 2021, a panel of three judges from the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered the release of Sheikh.
Despite the ban, Indian authorities claim that the group continues to operate in Bahawalpur, Pakistan's Punjab province. On May 7, Indian troops claimed that their strike also targeted Jem's headquarters.
In 2019, Jem claimed that Pulwama, in Kashmir, who was managed in India, killed 40 Indian paramilitary soldiers.
Azhar was arrested twice by Pakistani authorities but was released but never charged. Since then, he has disappeared from the public's eyes and his whereabouts are still unclear.
Hizbul-ul-Mujahideen (Hum), or "jihadists" was founded in 1989 by Muhammad Ahsan Dar, the leader of Kashmir separatism.
The group stood out from protests against the Indian government in Kashmir in 1988. Also known as HIZB, the group has become the largest indigenous rebel group in Kashmir managed by India.
The buzz did not demand independence, but called on Kashmir as a whole to be allowed to join Pakistan.
The team has a massive fighter network in the Shopian, Kulgam and Pulwama regions of southern Kashmir managed by India.
In 2016, the killing of popular buzz commander Burhan Wani sparked widespread protests in India-managed Kashmir, leading to a crackdown by Indian security forces.
The following year, the United States designated Home as a "foreign terrorist organization" and imposed sanctions on the group.
Buzz leader Riyaz Naikoo spoke with Al Jazeera in 2018. “It is the nature of the occupied Indian state that forces us to resort to violent methods of resistance,” he said.
Asked what the organization’s demands were, Naikoo said: “Our needs are very simple – freedom. For us, freedom means illegal occupation of India in Kashmir and all the structures that support it, both military and economic.”
He added that the group considers Pakistan a “ideological and moral friend” because “Pakistan is the only country that has always supported our cause and has attracted the attention of Kashmir’s freedom struggle on international forums.”