A car bomb ripped through a petrol station in northwest Pakistan on Monday, killing six people including two children in an area troubled by Taliban attacks, police officials said. The blast hit in Charsadda town, about 30 kilometres (18 miles) northeast of Peshawar, the capital of the troubled North West Frontier Province. "Six people were killed and eight injured in the explosion. It was a passenger vehicle... the bomb was planted in a pick-up," district police chief Mohammad Riaz Khan said. He said that two women and two children were among the dead, and police were investigating the motive behind the blast. Jahanzeb Khan, a police official at scene, confirmed the death toll and said the vehicle had been completely destroyed by the bomb. Charsadda district borders the tribal region of Mohammad, where the government has tenuous control and Taliban militants are active. The vehicle was headed to Mohammad when it blew up. Pakistan's military launched a series of offensives against Taliban militants in the northwest in late April prompting a string of revenge attacks, but there had been a lull in deadly bombings in the past month.