13 Die in Pakistan Hotel Bomb Blast; Afghan Agents Blamed

A bomb Saturday destroyed a hotel in the center of this city in northwestern Pakistan and killed 13 people, police said. Officials blamed government agents from neighboring Afghanistan.

Muslims had just finished morning prayers shortly after sunrise when the bomb exploded, tearing through the three-story hotel and tearoom in the old section of the city, said Abdul Ahmed Khan, assistant inspector of crimes.

“It collapsed just like a sandwich,” Khan said.

Rescuers pulled the bodies from the ruins of the hotel. Two people survived nine hours under the rubble but died on the way to the hospital, police said.

Those killed included an Afghan woman and her 3-year-old child, said Omar Amer, a Pakistani journalist who visited the scene. The woman had come to Peshawar for medical treatment, he said.

The blast injured four people. Three were treated and released from the hospital.

The seven-party Afghan guerrilla alliance, which is fighting to overthrow the Afghan government, has its headquarters in Peshawar, 30 miles from the Afghan border.

The deputy inspector general of police, Kamal Shah, said officers in the city regularly search people, parcels and vehicles, and that terrorists target places such as hotels, where baggage is seldom checked.

Police said they suspected that agents of Afghanistan’s Communist government were responsible for the blast.

The chief minister of North-West Frontier province, Fazle Haq, told a press conference that Pakistan’s support for more than 3 million Afghan refugees and Afghan guerrillas has made the area a target for terrorists.

But he promised that Pakistan will not end its support for the guerrillas, who also have received support from China and the United States.