PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber apparently targeting an anti-Taliban mayor struck a crowded market Sunday in northwestern Pakistan, killing the mayor and 11 other people and wounding dozens, police said.

The attack took place in the town of Adazai, about 10 miles (16 kilometers) south of the main northwestern city of Peshawar. The market was crowded with shoppers and goats being sold to celebrate the upcoming Muslim festival of Eid.

The mayor, Abdul Malik, who was initially reported to have survived, died in the attack, said Sahibzada Anis, the top official in Peshawar.

Malik, who had once been a Taliban supporter, later switched sides and formed a local militia to help fight the militants.

"Malik had survived several attacks on his life in the recent past, since he turned against the militants," Anis said. "But today the militants have finally killed him."

A young girl was among the 12 killed, officials said. Twenty-five wounded people — several in critical condition — were rushed to a hospital, police officer Abdul Sattar Khan said.

Khan Zamir was buying goats when the explosion ripped through the street.

"That place turned into hell where the dead and injured were lying everywhere and blood and flesh were spread around," he said, adding two of his relatives were badly wounded.

"Now we have our blood in this war," he said, vowing revenge against the attackers.

Militants have struck numerous times in Pakistan in recent weeks, killing more than 300 civilians and soldiers in attacks aimed at weakening the government's resolve to continue a military operation against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in South Waziristan.

Pakistani troops have fought gunbattles in and around key Taliban towns in the region for several days. The latest fighting Sunday in the Taliban heartland killed 20 militants and wounded eight soldiers, an army statement said.

The government launched the offensive in mid-October in the semiautonomous tribal region, which runs along the Afghan border and where the government has seldom had significant influence. The area has become the main Taliban and al-Qaida sanctuary in the country.

The military says hundreds of militants have been killed in the fighting — a claim the Taliban dismisses.

About 350,000 people have fled the fighting.