It was the fifth attack in the city in less than a week.

Nine people were killed Wednesday, as a car bomb tore through a packed market near a police station in Pakistani city of Peshawar.

"It was a timed bomb. The target was police. He parked the car here due to the rush," senior police official Mohammad Ijaz Khan told reporters.
The bomb was planted in a car, devastating shops and vehicles as civilians thronged the congested area at the start of the working day in the northwestern city.

Peshawar's main Lady Reading Hospital said it had received nine dead after the attack, including three children and one woman.
"Children and women are among the injured as well," hospital chief Abdul Hamid Afridi told AFP.

Peshawar city police chief Liaquat Ali Khan confirmed the toll and said more than 20 people were wounded. An AFP reporter saw 23 patients being treated in hospital, including six children aged four to 12.
It was the fifth attack in the city in less than a week.