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ISLAMABAD, Sunday (Reuters)

Nine Europeans and three Pakistanis were wounded when an assailant hurled a hand grenade at a tourist party in northern Pakistan, officials and the European tour leader said.

Seven Germans, one Austrian and one Slovenian were among the wounded, whose injuries were described as minor. All of the injured had been discharged from hospital.

Some 27 tourists were visiting Ashoka sites - relics of ancient Hindu civilisation - near Mansehra in the northwestern Frontier Province when they were attacked, Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema, head of interior ministry's Crisis Management Cell, told Reuters.

The tourists were on their way to Pakistan's scenic northern areas but returned to Rawalpindi, near the capital in Islamabad, after the incident.

"They were just walking around the Ashoka rocks when someone lobbed a home-made device," Cheema told Reuters. The tour leader, who identified herself as Leeta, said: "I think it was an explosion."

"We did not see anybody...I saw only my people there. One man was lying on the floor," she told Reuters television in Rawalpindi.

Her shirt was splattered with blood and she had a minor injury on her chest. Other tourists had minor injuries on their legs and hands.

A police official in Mansehra said five women were among the wounded.

Pakistan's tourism industry has been hit since the September 11 attacks on the United States and a military standoff with neighbouring India in December. Many countries have advised their nationals to avoid travelling to Pakistan.

No one claimed responsibility for the incident -- the fifth attack on Westerners in Pakistan since military ruler General Pervez Musharraf abandoned neighbouring Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

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