PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber blew himself up near a police station in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, killing six people, including two children, officials said.

The attack occurred in the town of Bannu, which lies close to Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border.

“It was a suicide attack. The bomber came on foot and detonated himself near a police van close to a police station,” said Bannu police chief Iftikhar Khan.

“The death toll is now six. They include two boys aged seven and nine, one police official and three pedestrians. Nineteen people were injured,” Khan told AFP.

Officials had said earlier that four people died.

“Our van was the target of the blast,” police official Raza Khan told AFP.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, but Taliban militants frequently bomb government security forces in the northwest.

Around 4,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since government forces raided an extremist mosque in Islamabad in 2007. The attacks have been blamed on Taliban and al Qaeda-linked networks.