MOSCOW, October 9 (RIA Novosti) - At least 49 people were killed and some 100 were injured in a suspected suicide car bombing by a crowded market in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, Iran's PressTV channel reported.

The powerful explosion also damaged several cars and nearby buildings, and the death toll is expected to rise further as some of the injured were in a critical condition.

The attack, which occurred close to the city's main Khyber Bazaar, came after militants fired three rockets into Peshawar, hitting different areas of the city on Thursday, the TV channel said.

Peshawar is the main city in Pakistan's northwest and a frequent target for insurgents.

On Monday, a suicide bomb attack on the UN World Food Program's office in the center of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, killed at least five people.

The bombings have sparked fears of a Taliban resurgence in the region, despite the recent killings of several of the group's top commanders in Pakistan.

Hakeemullah Mehsud, the chief of a Taliban umbrella group in Pakistan announced his group would exact revenge on U.S. and Pakistani forces for the killing of his cousin and former commander, Baitullah Mehsud. The warlord was reportedly killed in a U.S. drone attack in the volatile tribal Waziristan region.