Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, a faction of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the bombing, stating that it was carried out to avenge the death of their founder and former leader Omar Khalid Khorasani.

[1] After waging deadly attacks across the nation during the late 2000s and early 2010s, the TTP's power would significantly diminish after several military offensives conducted against them in 2014 and 2017, forcing the group to mostly retreat into neighbouring Afghanistan.

This includes the 2014 Peshawar school massacre, in which nearly 150 people, mostly children, were killed by the TTP as well as a bombing at a Shia mosque in 2022, which was conducted by the Islamic State - Khorasan Province.

[2] On 30 January 2023, the perpetrator, an Afghan national identified as "Qari", was picked up by his driver on a motorcycle at Charsadda Mosque and taken to the Rahman Baba Graveyard in Peshawar, where he put on a police uniform and a concealed explosive vest.

[12] After parking the motorcycle, he asked a constable for directions to the mosque and then entered it, the guards believing him to be a fellow officer and allowing him to pass through multiple exterior security checkpoints.

[15][16] At approximately 1:30 p.m. PST (UTC+5), the perpetrator detonated his vest containing 12 kilograms of trinitrotoluene, the explosion reportedly causing "a huge burst of flames" before a plume of black dust.

[26] However, he states that the more likely situation was that the TTP was aware of the bombing and denies responsibility regardless, possibly relying on the fact that the groups relationships between their central leaders and various factions are complex and often confusing, giving them a level of plausible deniability.

[4] Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif condemned the bombing, stating that the attack was incompatible with Islam and that the entirety of Pakistan stands against the "menace of terrorism".

[17] Former prime minister Imran Khan condemned the bombing, saying, "It is imperative we improve our intelligence gathering and properly equip our police forces to combat the growing threat of terrorism.

[45] During his confession, constable Muhammad Wali stated that through Facebook he had been in contact with a Jamaat-ul-Ahrar recruiter identified as "Junaid" from Afghanistan in 2021, convincing him to travel through the Chaman border crossing and join the group in the same year, receiving 20,000 rupees in return.