A suicide car bomber destroyed a police investigation centre used to interrogate suspected militants in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore yesterday, killing at least 13 people in the first such attack in several weeks.

The Pakistani Taleban claimed responsibility for the attack in which a bomber rammed a car packed with up to 600kg of explosives into the Federal Investigation Agency building, which is used by police and intelligence agents.

At least 70 others were injured in the attack, which collapsed the front of the two-storey building, left a huge crater in the ground, and severely damaged a nearby Islamic seminary.

Police said that there were 30-50 people in the FIA building in Model Town in Lahore at the time of the attack, and the dead included at least eight government employees and four civilians — one of whom was a child.

Ayyaz Saleem, a police official in Model Town, said that his officers had found the head of the suicide bomber about 500 metres from the blast.

The frequency of such attacks has dropped this year, after a dramatic increase in 2009, as militants have been under pressure from Pakistani army operations and increasing CIA drone attacks on the tribal regions near the Afghan border.

But yesterday’s bombing demonstrates that the militants are still capable of striking high-profile targets across the country, where such attacks have killed more than 3,000 people in since 2007.

Lahore alone has suffered at least six militant attacks over the past year, including two previous assaults on the FIA building.

A spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taleban Pakistan (the Pakistani Taleban) claimed responsibility for the attack and said that it was revenge for Pakistani military operations and CIA drone strikes on the tribal areas.

“We have 2,800 to 3,000 more suicide bombers ... We will target all government places, buildings and offices,” he said.

Rehman Malik, the Interior Minister, blamed the bombing on “hired killers who want to destabilize Pakistan”.

Pakistan’s army claims to have made big gains against Taleban and al-Qaeda militants in the past year with major offensives in the northwestern district of Swat and the tribal region of South Waziristan.

At the same time, the United States has increased drone strikes on the area, killing one leader of the Pakistani Taleban, Baitullah Mehsud, and possibly his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, although the latter has yet to be confirmed.

In the last month, Pakistan has also detained Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Afghan Taleban’s main military commander, and several other high-profile militants in an apparent sign of closer co-operation with the United States.

But Pakistan has yet to bow to US pressure to send its army into the tribal region of North Waziristan, which US officials believe has become the main hub for militant leaders, possibly including Osama bin Laden.