Peshawar, Pakistan (BBN)- At least 11people were killed and 40 others wounded in a powerful bomb attack on a five-star hotel in the country’s northwestern Peshawar city Tuesday night.

A local police high up confirmed that at least 11 people were killed. But the toll is likely to rise.

The bomb was hidden in a car. Attackers fired on a checkpoint in front of the hotel of the five-star Pearl Continental hotel in the high-security Khyber Road area of Peshawar. They then took car round the back of the hotel and set the bomb off, according to reports.

The blast was so powerful that windowpanes of the nearby buildings broke. Soon after the blast, the power supply to the area was suspended. The whole area is plunged into darkness, the Geo News reported.

Peshawar is the capital of the North-West Frontier Province that borders Afghanistan. The area is a hot spot of Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked insurgency.

In 2008, a massive bombing at the Marriott Hotel in the capital, Islamabad killed more than 50 people and wounded dozens.

BBN/SS/SI/AD-10June09-2:27 am (BST)