Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan

Sipah-e-Muhammad Pakistan (سپاہ محمد پاکستان; English: Soldiers of Muhammad) is a Shia group formed in the early 1990s (the exact date of formation is unclear) as a response to sectarian violence against Pakistani Shia orchestrated by Wahabi Militant Deobandi movements such as Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (S.S.P) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (L-e-J). On August 14, 2001, it was banned by President Pervez Musharraf as a terrorist organisation.

Formation
During the 1980s, Zia-ul-Haq allowed and encouraged the Militant Wahabi Islamization of Pakistan. One of the organizations that arose in this period was the Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Wahabi Deobandi-supremacist militant group that considered the Shiite minority to be non-Muslim. The Wahabi Militia Sipah-e-Sahaba targeted Shiite mosques, community leaders, as well as Iranian visitors and diplomats. They orchestrated the assassination of Iranian diplomat Sadiq Ganji in Lahore. They were also involved in the killing of Iranian Air Force cadets visiting Pakistan in the early 1990s, when sectarian attacks on Shiites in Pakistan were at their peak. Both acts occurred in the northern city of Rawalpindi and greatly disturbed contemporary Pakistan-Iran relations.

In response to this, Maulana Mureed Abbas Yazdani is believed to have formed Sipah-e-Muhammad as a splinter of the larger and more mainstream, Shiite political organization, Tehreek-e-Jaferia Pakistan (Movement of Shiites, Pakistan), since that organization was not encouraging a violent response to the Sipah-e-Sahaba's attacks.

Activities
Sipah-e-Muhammad's primarily aim was to target the leaders of Wahabi Militia Sipah-e-Sahaba and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. However, with the subsequent rise in violence against Shiites, it was thought to be reforming.

The movement was strong in various Shiite communities in Pakistan, and in the majority Shiite town of Thokar Niaz Baig ran a "virtual state within a state" in the 1990s.

Affiliations
Sipah-e-Muhammad is thought to have ties with the Iranian regime, and to an extent, both it and Sipah-e-Sahaba are seen as attempts by, respectively, the Iranian and Saudi Wahabi governments to assert influence in Pakistan.

Designation as a terrorist organization
The Government of Pakistan designated the Sipah-e-Muhammad a terrorist organization, and it is classified as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under U.S. law. As a result, its finances are blocked worldwide by the U.S government.