The death toll from a suicide attack in a crowded Pakistani cattle bazaar rose to 14 on Monday, officials said.

A suicide bomber detonated himself when people gathered to buy animals in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, killing a dozen people including a former Taliban supporter turned anti-militant Mayor Abdul Malik, police said.

The death toll rose to 14 as two people died overnight in intensive care, local administration chief Sahibzada Anis told AFP.

Doctor Zafar Iqbal at the local Lady Reading Hospital confirmed the deaths. Another 17 people were in hospital -- six in a serious condition, he added.

Hospital officials said two children were among the dead.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it was avenging Malik's efforts to raise a militia to fight Islamist rebels.

Malik, who once had close links to the hardline Taliban movement, switched sides in 2008 and raised a local force to battle the Islamist extremists on the fringes of the city.

Pakistan is waging a military offensive against homegrown Taliban umbrella movement Tehreek-e-Taliban in their mountain hideouts in South Waziristan.

Islamist militants have carried out a wave of suicide attacks and bombings across Pakistan, killing more than 2,450 people since July 2007.

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