A suicide attack on the Danish embassy in Pakistan was aimed at ruining bilateral ties, Denmark’s foreign minister said as his country reeled from what seemed to be a deadly new backlash over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.

"The aim of this criminal act is to destroy relations between Pakistan, it’s people and Denmark," Per Stig Moeller declared following a car bombing outside the mission in Islamabad that appeared to have killed at least eight people.

"This attack is also an attack on Pakistan and its security forces, since security agents were killed," he added.

Reports said 27 people were wounded in the bombing. The blast echoed through Islamabad and left a crater more than a metre deep in front of the embassy’s main gate.

An Internet posting purportedly by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan says it carried out the car bomb attack.

The statement said it was done in revenge for the reprinting of a "blasphemous" 2005 cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed in Danish newspapers in February. The cartoons, deemed offensive to Islam, led to worldwide protests at the time they were originally published.

The statement, signed by one Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, said that if Denmark did not apologize for the cartoons, more attacks would follow.

Meanwhile, Denmark has sent a team to Islamabad to investigate the attack. They have handed over the embassy’s surveillance footage to Pakistani investigators.

It shows a man driving a car at high speed in front of the embassy before it exploded. The car, a Suzuki, carried a Danish embassy diplomatic license plate to avoid security.

Danish PM Anders Fogh Rasmussen called the act "cowardly" and said it would not change Danish policies.

Investigators said it was not clear who carried out the attack.