PESHAWAR: A car bomb suicide attack by the Taleban that targeted a senior military officer rocked Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar Tuesday, killing at least four people and wounding 24, officials said.

Broken glass and human remains littered the scene of the explosion near the city’s main railway station, where one SUV was blown to pieces while the wreck of another smoldered.

“It was a vehicle-borne suicide attack which killed three people including an FC (Frontier Corps) soldier,” senior local police official Najib-ur-Rehman told AFP, adding the two others were civilians including a woman.

A senior security official later told AFP a fourth person had died.

Fourteen injured people were being treated at the city’s Lady Reading Hospital and 10 at the Combined Military Hospital, officials said.

Senior police official Faisal Shahzad said the target of the bombing appeared to be Brig. Khalid Javed, the second most senior officer in the FC force, who escaped unhurt.

The Pakistani Taleban faction led by Maulanah Fazlullah claimed responsibility for the attack, vowing revenge against the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz (PML-N) for a military operation in the northwest.

Speaking to AFP by telephone, the group’s spokesman Shahidullah Shahid said: “We claim responsibility for the Peshawar attack on Tuesday. We have no loss from operation Zarb-e-Azab,” referring to the military strikes.

“We are still as active as the past and will show the mirror to the PML-N as we showed the ANP (Awami National Party).”

The secular ANP ruled the northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa from 2008-2013 and was regularly targeted by the Taleban who killed hundreds of its workers and some senior figures.