The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility and said the blast was to avenge the death of Bin Laden. Already this month, the Al-Qaeda-allied group has claimed three other revenge attacks, including a bloody 18-hour siege of a naval base.

The target Wednesday in Peshawar appeared to be the police’s criminal investigation department, but the building was in an army compound and several military facilities also are nearby, regional police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said. Counterterrorism police were stationed at the center, another officer said.

Police officer Mohammad Zahid was in the basement when the bomb went off. “I felt like the sky fell on me,” Zahid said in hospital, where he was being treated for multiple injuries.

“The explosion jammed the door of my room in the basement, but there was a small hole in the wall so I crawled through that.” Six people died, five of them police officers, and at least 30 people were wounded, police said.

Military forces sealed off much of the cantonment as machines were brought in to sift through the piles of rubble left at the site of what was once a multistory building.

Government leaders condemned the bombing. “Our determination is much higher than before, and we will fight till the defeat of these terrorists,” said Bashir Bilour, a senior official with the provincial government. He said at least 300 kg of explosives were used.

Bin Laden was killed on May 2 by a team of US Navy SEALs in Abbottabad.

Since the raid, US-Pakistan relations have sunk to new lows. Pakistani leaders insist they had no idea the Al-Qaeda leader had been living, apparently for five years, in the large, three-story house in Abbottabad. And they are furious that the US raided the house without telling them in advance.

The Taleban have taken responsibility for a twin suicide bombing at a paramilitary police training facility that killed around 90 people and a car bomb that slightly wounded two Americans in northwest Pakistan.

But the siege this week of the naval base in Karachi was one of the most audacious assaults in years and further rattled a military establishment already humiliated by the unilateral US raid.

The militants destroyed two US-supplied surveillance aircraft while killing 10 people on the base. Four militants died in the fighting, officials said.

The commander of the naval base was relieved of his duties and replaced, according to a statement from the navy on Wednesday. A committee also was formed to investigate how the militants had infiltrated the base.