A massive suicide car bomb ripped through a packed market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar yesterday, killing at least 49 people and injuring over 100, in a region beset by Taliban attacks.

The blast, which hit around midday, left charred corpses strewn in a shopping area in the city's main Khyber Bazaar, with cars reduced to burning wreckages and a colourful city bus destroyed and flung on its side.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed the Taliban and said the attack could force the military to bring forward a planned operation to wipe out Islamist militant strongholds in the northwest tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Peshawar is the main city in the northwest and has been a frequent target of militants linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

"They are compelling us to launch the operation in South Waziristan early. We will take a decision on the operation against terrorists over the next few days," Mr Malik told reporters in Islamabad.

It was the sixth bombing in Peshawar in four months and comes as the Pakistani Taliban have vowed to increase attacks to avenge the killing of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone strike in August.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani "strongly condemned" the bombing, expressing his government's resolve to continue action against extremists, his office said in a statement.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also condemned the attack "in the strongest possible terms", his office said in a statement.

"No cause can justify such indiscriminate violence," it added.

Doctor Zafar Iqbal, the registrar of Peshawar's main Lady Reading Hospital, said: "We have 49 dead bodies brought to the hospital. Three of them are women and seven are children." All of the dead were civilians, he added.