Ansar ul-Islam was founded in 2004 by Saif-ur Rehman, an Afghan

Sufi Sufism ( or ) is a mysticism, mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic Tazkiyah, purification, spirituality, ritualism, and Asceticism#Islam, asceticism. Practitioners of Sufism are r ...

preacher, influenced by the

Barelvi The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah (People of the Prophet's Way and the Community) is a Sunni revivalist movement that generally adheres to the Hanafi school, Hanafi and Shafi'i school, Shafi'i schools of jurisprudenc ...

movement of

Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...

Islam. They are a militant Islamist group in North-west

Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...

and are rivals of

Lashkar-e-Islam Lashkar-e-Islam (, abbr. LI or LeI), also written as Laskhar-i-Islam, is a Deobandi jihadist militant group operating in Khyber District, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province, Pakistan and the neighboring Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. LeI was fo ...

. The group was being led by Qazi Mehboob-ul-Haq in . The group was banned by the Pakistani government in June 2008, and the ban was renewed in Pakistan's 2014 National Internal Security Policy.

References

Islamic organisations based in Pakistan 2006 establishments in Pakistan Paramilitary organisations based in Pakistan Organisations designated as terrorist by Pakistan Barelvi organizations {{paramilitary-org-stub