New York  - UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the bomb attack that killed at least 49 people in a market in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday.

A suicide bomber detonated his explosives-laden car in the city's crowded Khyber bazaar, located a few hundred metres from the provincial assembly building, where a parliamentary session was taking place. The bombing also injured more than 100, as government forces prepared to open a new front against the Taliban amid warnings of revenge attacks.

The UN said the dead included children and women.

"No cause can justify such indiscriminate violence," Ban said. He extended his condolences to the families of the victims and to the government of Pakistan, and said he wished those injured a full recovery. dpa