At least 20 people were killed and approximately 40 others were wounded when a group of as many as five Jundullah militants - armed with small-arms, grenades, and explosive vests - attacked a Shia Muslim mosque in the Hayatabad area of the city of Peshawar in Pakistan's Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa on 13 February. One militant was killed by police and another detonated his explosives. Another suspected militant was detained by security forces. Jundullah - a Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) affiliate - claimed responsibility for the attack. The attack followed an earlier Jundullah suicide attack on a Shia Muslim mosque in the city of Shikarpur in Sindh province on 30 January, killing 59 people and wounding dozens of others.
These attacks fit Jundullah's operational pattern of periodic mass-casualty suicide attacks in urban areas of Pakistan. Between September and November 2014 the group carried out three such operations. The first was a suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (SVBIED) attack targeting a senior police official in the city of Karachi in Sindh province on 25 September, wounding eight people. In the second, a suicide bomber targeted the vehicle of Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman after Rehman had left a JUI-F rally at the Sadiq Shaheed stadium in the city of Quetta in Balochistan province on 23 October, killing two JUI-F activists and wounding 30 others - although Rehman was unhurt.
In the third attack, at least 61 people - including two army rangers, 10 women, and seven children - were killed and as many as 150 others were wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives at a security checkpoint during a flag-lowering ceremony at the Wagah border crossing with India in Pakistan's Punjab province on 2 November. However, there were conflicting claims of responsibility, as three militant groups released separate statements that day claiming involvement - the Mehsud faction of the TTP, TTP splinter group Jamat-ul Ahrar, and Jundullah.
Following those triple attacks, a Jundullah spokesperson - identified as Fahad Marwat - released a statement on 17 November, stating that the group had declared allegiance to the Islamic State after meeting with an Islamic State delegation in Balochistan province on an earlier unspecified date. Marwat added: "They [Islamic State] are our brothers, whatever plan they have we will support them." However, there has been no indication in open sources of the Islamic State recognising this pledge, or indeed that of other Pakistani pro-Islamic State groups, such as Tehrik-e-Khilafat (TeK). Indeed, when the Islamic State announced the formation of Wilayat Khorasan in neighbouring Afghanistan on 26 January, no mention was made of Pakistan or groups therein that have pledged allegiance.
Nonetheless, the latest Jundullah operations in Peshawar and Shikarpur not only underlined the operational capabilities and increasingly sectarian intent of the group - possibly designed to catch the attention of the Islamic State and underline its credentials - but also potentially demonstrated an evolution and progression in its tactics. In the Peshawar operation, the group used multiple attackers to strike the target, whereas in previous operations it has typically only used one or two.
