Blast in Pakistan's Peshawar kills 30

"We were told in hospital that more than 100 got wounded while 30 were killed," North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told reporters.

Television pictures showed a wrecked bus on its side on a road in a commercial neighborhood of the northwestern city. Several cars were also destroyed.

"The bus was making a turn when the blast occurred and it threw the bus into the air," a witness told the Duniya television channel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Security forces have made gains this year against al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban militants who have set off numerous bombs in towns and cities, mostly aimed at the security forces and government and foreign targets.

The government ordered the army to go on the offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in their South Waziristan bastion on the Afghan border.

Security forces have been launching air and artillery strikes, while moving-in troops, blockading the region and trying to split off factions, while preparing for a ground offensive.