[13] 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.

The area played critical roles in the military campaigns of the Persians, Alexander the Great, Kushans, Sassanids, Ghorids, Tatars, Mughals, Durranis, British and Soviets.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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: ٱلصِّرَٰطَ ٱلْمُسْتَقِيمَ; lit.

During this time, LeI had yet to engage in Islamic terrorism including martyrdom (suicide) operations or bombings of civilian targets, dissimilar to TTP tactics.

Bagh publicly announced LeI’s new image, no longer a localized Islamic anti-crime organization, but a larger Deobandi jihadist group.

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.

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.