Bagh is said to be a successor of Mufti Munir Shakir, a Deobandi cleric who established a pirate radio ministry in Khyber Agency in 2004 after being ejected from Kurram Agency by tribal elders for inciting sectarian hostility. When Shakir was ejected from Khyber Agency, he turned over his radio station to Bagh, a local driver, and Bagh then formed the militant group Lashkar-e-Islam.[3] Mangal Bagh was originally believed to have been killed in a drone attack on 22 July 2016 in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.[4]