ISLAMABAD, 29 April 2007 — A bomb exploded at an international airport in northwest Pakistan yesterday causing slight damage to the building, officials said.

It was a low intensity timed device planted outside a cafe near the entrance to the departure lounge at Peshawar International Airport, area police officer Iftikhar Khan said.

Peshawar is the capital of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

“There were two international flights taking off for the Middle East and the bomb explosion caused slight damage and panic among the visitors,” Khan told AFP, adding that an inquiry has been ordered

Dozens of passengers were in the lounge of the Peshawar International Airport at the time, but the “low intensity explosive device caused no casualties,” said Zahoor Ali Shah, the airport manager. how the explosive was smuggled into the airport.

“It was a homemade bomb, but we don’t know who had planted it,” he said. Shah said no flights were canceled after the blast, and officers were still investigating.

Pakistan has been hit by a wave of bomb blasts this year including an attack by a militant at Islamabad International Airport in February in which the attacker was killed and three policemen wounded. In another development, security forces arrested a Saudi national yesterday on suspicion of links with Al-Qaeda, but the detainee was apparently not a key figure, an official said.

The man, identified as Suleman Zakariya, was captured as he tried to sneak into the remote southwestern area of Zhob on foot from Wana, the main town in South Waziristan tribal region, where remnants of Al-Qaeda and Taleban are believed to be hiding.

“We suspect that this man has links with Al-Qaeda, but apparently he is not an important figure,” said Arbaz Khan, an official with the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary, which is assigned to safeguard the border with Afghanistan.

Zakariya, whose nationality was not disclosed, was being transported to Quetta for further questioning, he said.

Zhob about lies 400 km north of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province, where Afghan officials claim senior leaders of Afghanistan’s former Taleban regime were hiding.