A car bomb at a market in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 15 people on Saturday, local security officials have said.

The target of the attack in the town of Darra Adam Khel appeared to be members of a pro-government group created to
fight the Taliban.

Security officials told the Reuters news agency that the death toll may rise because scores of people were wounded.

"The target was the local peace committee," said Shirin Gul, adding that nobody  has yet claimed responsibility for the bombing.

The explosion took place in Darra Adam Khel’s Janan market and targeted the main office of the region’s anti-Taliban peace committee.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad: "It was a deadly attacks, up to 35 shops were destroyed and eight vehicles were destroyed.

The injured who had been shifted to hospitals in other areas of Kohat and in Peshawar for treatment.

Police had cordoned off the area and started a search operation.

Pakistan's military has launched several offensives against the Taliban.

But the operations, which have focused on Taliban strongholds in the ethnic Pashtun tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, have failed to break the back of the Taliban networks.

That is one reason why the government began encouraging tribesmen to revive traditional militias to take on the Taliban and rally their community behind the state.

But those militias frequently come under attack by the Taliban and the militia drive has had limited success.

The Taliban on Tuesday shot and wounded a teenage Pakistani  children's rights activist as she boarded a school bus in the former Taliban  stronghold of Swat.

The shooting of 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai who campaigned for the right to an education has been denounced worldwide and by the Pakistani authorities,  who have offered a reward of more than $100,000 for the capture of her  attackers.