Background The Khyber Agency (today Khyber District) was one of seven federally-administered agencies on the
Pakistan-Afghanistan border and comprises a series of mountains and lush valleys near the historically strategic Khyber Pass. The area is home to
Pashtuns (referred to in the region as Pakhtuns), primarily of the
Afridi and
Shinwari tribes, though members of the Mullaguris,
Orakzai, and
Shilmanis also inhabit the area. The area played critical roles in the military campaigns of the
Persians,
Alexander the Great,
Kushans,
Sassanids,
Ghorids,
Tatars,
Mughals,
Durranis,
British and
Soviets. Following
Pakistani independence from the
British Raj and the
partition,
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of the Pakistani state, ordered the withdrawal of all government forces from the tribal areas along the northwest border with Afghanistan, granting the tribes significant autonomy.
Establishment Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) and the emergence of militant conflict in
Khyber District both trace their origins back to the founding of the organization Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the
Tirah Valley of Khyber Agency. The organization’s name derives from the
Quranic injunction “
enjoining (what is) right and forbidding (what is) evil” () which represents duties imposed by
God in
Islam and is the foundation of the Islamic institution of
hisbah, the individual or collective duty (depending on the
Islamic school of law) to enforce
Islamic law. AMNAM was founded in
Tirah Valley by the local tribesman Haji Namdar, reportedly under the direction of senior
Afghan Taliban commander and key ideologue Ustad Yasir. A key element of AMNAM’s founding, Namdar created an
FM radio station and enlisted the controversial radical tribal preacher and Pashtun Deobandi, Mufti Munir Shakir, to broadcast firebrand Islamic sermons. AMNAM began to compete with the other Islamic militant group in Khyber Agency,
Ansar-ul-Islam (AI, not to be confused with other jihadist groups of the same name). AI was a more moderate
Barelvi Sunni revivalist movement led by the Afghan
Sufi Pir Saifur Rahman, who had settled in the area. Two separate ideologies, Mufti Shakir’s strict Deobandist creed and AI’s moderate Barelvi persuasion, competed in FM radio broadcasts generating a sectarian conflict with both organizations issuing
fatwas ordering the other to leave Khyber Agency. As an ideological leader, Mufti Shakir gained a significant following among AMNAM cadres, and eventually left the organization to found Lashkar-e-Islam (LeI) in 2004, taking many of AMNAM’s followers with him. In 2006, in an attempt to quell the escalating conflict between AI and LeI, a tribal council (
jirga) of senior Afridi tribesmen from Khyber Agency decided to expel the two non-native leaders of AI (Pir Saifur Rahman) and LeI (Mufti Shakir) from the Agency. The exile of the leaders only worsened the growing conflict in Khyber Agency as more fanatic commanders, Mehbub-ul-Haq of AI and Mangal Bagh Afridi of LeI, took command of the militant groups and continued to clash. Under the new command of Mangal Bagh, LeI became the most organized and powerful militant group operating in the Agency leaving AI and the remnants of AMNAM altogether weakened. ===
War on terror === In 2008, the
Pakistani Taliban (
TTP) began establishing a presence in
Khyber Agency in efforts to both resist
Pakistani military counterinsurgency operations and to aid the Afghan Taliban and
al-Qaeda in attacks on
NATO supply convoys transiting the
Torkham border crossing in the
Khyber Pass. In an attempt to reassert Pakistani control over the strategic border crossing, stem continued attacks on
Peshawar, and under pressure from
NATO, the Pakistani military banned LeI, AI, and AMNAM and, through the
paramilitary Frontier Corps, launched four military operations in
Khyber Agency against
TTP, LeI, AI, and AMNAM named Darghlum, Baya Drghlum, Sirat-e-Mustakeem, and Khwakh Ba De Shum. These operations failed to dislodge LeI from the area as
Pakistani military and intelligence predominately targeted
TTP forces and correctly assessed at the time that LeI had no effective ties to the
Pakistani Taliban. Up to late 2008, LeI leader Mangal Bagh had received and declined multiple offers to ally his organization with the
TTP, even as both groups found themselves under attack by the Pakistani military in the major Sirat-e-Mustakeem (
Arabic: ;
lit. ‘Path of Righteousness’) campaign of June 2008 which directly targeted LeI forces in Khyber. Though a militant Islamic group, at the time LeI had a greater focus on the
Deobandi revivalist movement (similar to the
Afghan Taliban) closing religiously-forbidden music shops and, at times, abducting
Christians in Peshawar. During this time, LeI had yet to engage in
Islamic terrorism including
martyrdom (suicide) operations or bombings of civilian targets, dissimilar to
TTP tactics. The
TTP’s presence, though not yet part of a consolidated movement, in Khyber Agency was opposed by locals and the militant groups of LeI, AI, and AMNAM who all clashed with the group on occasion.
TTP initially attempted to gain influence in the area by sending the influential leader Ustad Yasir to develop relations between the
TTP and Haji Namdar of AMNAM who feared the weakening of his organization’s power in the area. The relationship soured quickly after a
TTP suicide attack on a tribal council (jirga) killed over 40 tribal chiefs representing each major faction within Khyber Agency. Further, when it was suspected that Haji Namdar was siding with the Pakistani state over the
TTP during Sirat-e-Mustakeem, an
TTP operative assassinated Namdar in August 2008. === Partnership with
Pakistani Taliban ===
TTP, nevertheless determined to control Khyber and take control of the border to disrupt the movement
NATO supply convoys, endeavored to forge a positive relationship with the militant groups in the Agency. It was after the conclusion of Sirat-e-Mustakeem in late 2008, that the LeI and its leader, Mangal Bagh, had been pushed closer to the
Pakistani Taliban by Pakistan’s offensive operations. LeI began providing
TTP militants access to the region and started to receive tactical instruction from
TTP trainers, including in the execution of martyrdom operations. Bagh publicly announced LeI’s new image, no longer a localized Islamic anti-crime organization, but a larger
Deobandi jihadist group. Bagh addressed the
Pakistani government stating “Now it is difficult for us to live in peace. The conflict will not be confined to
Khyber Agency alone; rather it will spread to the entire Peshawar region.” === The shift in tactics, likely a result of
TTP instructors’ training of LeI fighters, became apparent soon after with a series of joint
TTP-LeI suicide attacks against the
Pakistani government in
Peshawar,
NATO supply convoys, and, on 5 April 2010, the
American Consulate in Peshawar which killed 50 and wounded over 100. As part of the operation targeting the most well-protected facility in the city, militants from
TTP and LeI drove two vehicles up to the consulate, the first of which detonated next to an armored personnel carrier, and the second of which deployed armed fighters who shot at the consulate before detonating suicide vests. The militants had brought ramps to scale the metal barriers of the consulate and would’ve likely succeeded had pieces of the bombed armored personnel carrier not lodged in the barrier. During the same year, joint
TTP and LeI operations against
NATO supply convoys at in the
Khyber Pass destroyed over 700 cargo and military vehicles.
Weakening In 2011, LeI militants beheaded a religious scholar of the
Zakakhel tribe initiating a surge of violence in the region as the Zakakheli tribesmen joined with AI fighters to attack LeI militants in Khyber Agency, partially weakening LeI’s influence in parts of the Tirah Valley. From 2014 to 2015, the Pakistani military operations Khyber 1 and
Zarb-e-Azab forced LeI from Khyber and effectively stunted LeI’s operational capacity, forcing the group’s leaders, militants, and their families to move westward across the border into
Nazyan District, Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. From their new home in Afghanistan, LeI continued to conduct suicide attacks into Pakistan, with financial assistance from Afghan tribal leaders who supported the fight against the Pakistani government, according to some sources. In May 2015, Laskhar-e-Islam announced that it had merged with the
Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, though the completeness of the merger remains murky as both groups continued to separately claim individual attacks except for larger, jointly-coordinated attacks. LeI carried out at least 18 attacks in 2016 and 21 in 2017. While in the districts of Nazyan,
Shirzad,
Shinwar, and
Achin, Nangarhar, LeI began to form a loose alliance with the
Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) exchanging fighters and conducting joint suicide attacks. The relationship quickly dissolved in a dispute over natural resources. LeI continued to attack the Pakistani state in and near Khyber District in hopes of retaking the territory and returning to its original base of operations. Beginning in 2015, a year after LeI’s displacement from Khyber, the
United States carried out a number of
drone strikes killing LeI commanders and, in 2016, reportedly killed LeI leader Mangal Bagh, whom the U.S. had placed a $3 million (
USD) bounty on. News of Bagh had subsided until 28 January 2021 when Bagh, his 12-year old daughter, and two bodyguards were killed in a roadside bombing in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. Although Bagh was in Afghanistan at the time of his January 2021 death, it is unclear the state and footprint of the movement since the
U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Afghan Taliban’s establishment of the
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA). Mangal Bagh was replaced by Zala Khan Afridi as leader of LeI days after Bagh’s death. Khan’s deputy, Tayyab (son of Mangal Bagh, also known as Ajnabi) was detained in
Spin Boldak,
Kandahar Province, Afghanistan by Afghan Taliban authorities — a move likely intended by the Afghan Taliban government to curry favor from Pakistani authorities as the IEA seeks international recognition. == Analysis ==