One of the attackers also died in the explosion, which occurred at about 7:45 a.m. (9:45 p.m. EDT) at the hospital in Taxila, about 25 miles from Islamabad, said Taxila police inspector Fatha Khan. The chapel is on the hospital grounds.

Hospital officials said three nurses, all Pakistani, died in the attack and 15 others were injured. They did not describe the nature or seriousness of the injuries.

The Taxila hospital receives funds from the Presbyterian Church USA and other Christian groups. It was founded in 1922 and specializes in treating eye diseases common among poor Pakistanis.

The assault is the second in less than a week against Christian or Western interests. On Monday, gunmen burst through the gates of the Murree Christian School, about 35 miles northeast of Islamabad, and killed six people, all Pakistani.

Police said that three men responsible for the attack blew themselves up with grenades on Tuesday after escaping from a police checkpoint in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Before blowing themselves up, the three men warned that several other groups "plan to carry out similar attacks on Americans and you will soon hear about it," according to witnesses.

The men said they were from Karachi, a southern city that has been the site of several attacks against Westerners and Western interests.

Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in January in Karachi and later murdered. On May 8, a bomb exploded in front of a Karachi hotel, killing 11 French engineers and three Pakistanis. Another explosion killed 12 Pakistanis outside the US Consulate in Karachi on June 14.

On March 17, an attacker hurled grenades into a Protestant church in Islamabad's heavily guarded diplomatic quarter, killing five people, including an American woman and her 17-year-old daughter. The assailant also died.

(China Daily August 9, 2002)