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A suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan's Peshawar Monday, killing seven people and wounding dozens more in the latest attack in a city beset by Taliban violence, officials said.

Peshawar, capital of the troubled northwest, had seen the brunt of Taliban attacks avenging military offensives against them across the region, with more than 270 people killed in bombings in the city since early October.

Bashir Bilor, a senior minister in the northwest provincial government, told reporters that a man wearing explosives rode up to a district court building in the centre of the city in a rickshaw.

"He got down and tried to enter the building but could not do so because of our security arrangements," he said, adding that the severed head of the bomber has been found about 70 metres (yards) away from the blast site.

Zafar Iqbal, a senior doctor at Peshawar's main Lady Reading hospital, said seven people were killed and dozens more injured.

"Five bodies were brought to hospital and there were 49 injured. Two of them succumbed to their injuries in the hospital," he told AFP.

Local television showed images of blackened sandals lying in pools of water on a charred road. Smoke and flames filled the streets as ambulances rushed to the scene and fire engines trained their hoses on smouldering cars.

At least eight vehicles were destroyed by the bomb, an AFP reporter at the scene said, while the blast site was covered in smashed glass and the blood of the dead and wounded.

Senior bomb disposal official Tanveer Iqbal said that about six to seven kilograms (13 to 15 pounds) of explosives were used.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani swiftly condemned the bombing, deploring "the loss of innocent lives", a statement from his office said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Pakistan is in the grip of a fierce Islamist insurgency, with more than 2,600 people killed in attacks mostly blamed on the Taliban in the last two-and-a-half years.

Suicide bombings have intensified this year as the military pursues offensives against Taliban strongholds across the northwest.

October and early November saw a fierce surge in attacks, including a huge suicide car bombing on October 28 that ripped through a Peshawar market killing 125 people in the worst attack in Pakistan in two years.

There had been a lull in attacks in recent weeks, then on Friday four suicide bombers stormed a mosque in Islamabad's twin city Rawalpindi, killing 36 people in an onslaught of gunfire, grenades and explosions.

Pakistan's military is engaged in offensives against Islamist militants across much of the northwest including the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a region branded the most dangerous place on earth by Washington.

The tribal belt has been plagued by instability for years, exacerbated in 2001 when a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban regime from Afghanistan, sending hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants into the lawless region.

About 30,000 troops backed by helicopter gunships and fighter jets poured into South Waziristan in October to try to dismantle Taliban strongholds. The military says it is making progress crushing the Islamist threat.

But Washington and London are pressuring Pakistan to do more to capture Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and prevent militants crossing the border and targeting foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities deny that bin Laden is on their soil, while Islamabad is focused on militants it considers a domestic threat, analysts say.

AFP