Lashkar-e-Islam

Lashkar-e-Islam (Urdu: لشكرِ اسلام, lit. 'Army of Islam', abbr. LI or LeI), also written as Laskhar-i-Islam, is a Deobandi jihadist terrorist group operating in Khyber District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan and the neighboring Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan.

LeI was founded in 2004 as a Deobandi militant group in Khyber Agency (today Khyber District) until it formed an alliance with the Pakistani Taliban (Tehrik-e Taliban, TTP) in 2008 under the pressure of Pakistani counterinsurgency operations against the groups and a desire by the Pakistani Taliban to control the strategic Khyber Pass for attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan. LeI’s 2008 alliance with the Pakistani Taliban and 2015 partial merger with the group transformed the LeI from a local militant organization to a regional and transnational terrorist organization. Though displaced into Afghanistan in 2014 and weakened by Pakistani and later U.S. military operations, the groups maintains an reduced footprint in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

LeI was founded as a splinter from the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (AMNAM) in Khyber Agency in 2004 by Mufti Munir Shakir who led the group until his 2006 exile by local tribes. Mufti Shakir was replaced by Mangal Bagh, a senior commander under Mufti Shakir, until his death in a roadside bomb attack in late January 2021. A day later, the group announced Zala Khan Afridi as LeI’s new leader with Bagh’s son, Tayyab, as deputy. Tayyab was detained by the Afghan Taliban in December 2022.