| Ansarul Sharia Pakistan | |
| Founder: | Sheheryar aka Abdullah Hashmi |
| Active: | February 2017 - present |
| Area: | Karachi |
| Allegiance: | Al-Qaeda (Alleged) |
| Ideology: | Islamism Islamic extremism Qutbism Anti-Secularism Anti-Liberalism |
| Allies: | al-Qaeda Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami Pakistani Taliban[1] |
| Battles: | War on Terror |
| Designated As Terror Group By: |  Pakistan |
Ansarul Sharia Pakistan (ASP) is a Pakistani Alleged Al-Qaeda linked militant group based in Karachi, Pakistan.[2] [3] The organization was founded in February 2017.[4] The group was known for committing many attacks, at one point they performed attacks on a weekly basis. The group claimed, through their Twitter page, that they recruited members from South Punjab, Balochistan, and Waziristan. The group has also claimed to have ties to Al-Qaeda.
The group was founded in February 2017 and originates from the Punjab region in Pakistan. The leaders of the group are claimed to have derived their ideology and tactical methodologies from Osama Bin Laden and his organization, Al-Qaeda. Members of the group allegedly fought for the Islamic State Khurasan, but the organization's brutal tactics drove its members into creating Ansural Sharia Pakistan. The Ansarul Sharia Pakistan group is also known for being the group that the mujahideen group started with, they later splintered off because they were unimpressed with the Ansarul Sharia Pakistan's actions.
The group originally consisted of roughly ten to twelve young men who attended various universities in Karachi, Pakistan.[5] The group was known to communicate using smartphone apps and were known to be wearing medallions that held small memory cards that carried important information about the group. Law enforcement has claimed that the group receives a list of targeted killing tasks from abroad.
Eight members of the group were killed during a counter-terrorism operation in Karachi.[6] The encounter claimed the life of the group's leader Chief Sheheryar who goes by the alias Dr. Abdullah Hashmi. Another identified from the dead was Arsalan Baig who was known for his activity in the group's targeted killings. After this attack, five people in the group died immediately and three others died while en route to the hospital.
The leader of Ansarul Shariah (Pakistan) was Chief Sheheryar. He received his master's degree in applied physics from the University of Karachi. He worked as an information technology expert for the computer department at NED University of Engineering and Technology.
Chief Sheheryar was claimed to have been arrested in September 2017.[7]
Abdul Karim Sarosh Siddiqui and muzammil ali junaidi is claimed to have been the masterminds behind the attacks on Khwaja Izhar. He was also a student of applied physics at University of Karachi while muzammil was the student of NED university final year . Siddiqui was suspected of being close friends with the suspected militant Hassan who died during the attempted assassination of Izharul Hassan.
Khwaja Izharul Hassan was the leader of the opposition in the Sindh Assembly.