Taliban militants today kept up their wave of terror attacks in Pakistan, with three suicide bombers, including one apparently a burqa-clad woman, targeting a police station in the Northwestern Peshawar city killing 14 persons and injuring 16 others.

The blast, which occurred at 1 pm local time, severely damaged the police building and destroyed several vehicles, local TV channels reported.

The police station in the cantonment area of North West Frontier Province's (NWFP) capital city targeted by the attacker, also housed the office of the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA). A nearby mosque was also severely damaged by the powerful blast.

Three policemen, two women and a child were among the dead, officials said. Three security personnel were among the injured, said district administration chief Sahibzada Muhammad Anees.

"It was a suicide attack. The leg of the bomber has been found," NWFP Information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters at the site of the attack. Seven of the injured are in a serious condition, he said.

"The CIA office and police were targets of the bomber but many civilians were killed and injured," Hussain said.

About 60 to 70 kg of explosives were used in the attack, said additional inspector general of Police Shafqat Malik of the Bomb Disposal Squad.

NWFP police chief Malik Navid told the state-run PTV that the bomber was driving a car.

The attack came a day after the eastern city of Lahore witnessed three near-simultaneous strikes on a Federal Investigation Agency office and two police training centres that killed 18 people. Ten attackers were either gunned down
by security forces or blew themselves up.

Hussain said militants had stepped up attacks in view of the government's plans to launch operations in the Taliban's stronghold of South Waziristan. "But just as we didn't accept pressure from the militants when we were conducting operations in Malakand division, we won't accept pressure now. We will take firm steps to end terrorism," he said.

An emergency was declared in all hospitals in Peshawar, where authorities have been on high alert for the past few weeks in the wake of a wave of deadly attacks blamed on the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan.

With terror toll mounting, Pakistan law enforcement agencies began swoops countrywide, arresting over 80 people suspected to be involved in the recent spate of deadly strikes, including in the synchronised suicide attacks in Lahore which left 29 people dead.

In Lahore, where Taliban mounted three near-simultaneous terror attacks on security facilities, police took 36 suspects into custody from Mananwan, Bedian Road, Temple Road and cantonment â€” areas which came under attack yesterday.

The police dragnet stretched to Karachi where authorities arrested 43 suspects, including four who were receiving treatment for gunshot wounds in a hospital.

Meanwhile, police in the Pakistani capital today claimed to have foiled a possible terrorist attack by arresting two men with suicide jackets, grenades and pistols, hours after a series of audacious assaults in Lahore.