HIGHLIGHTS: No One Claims Responsibility for Attack on Bus||18 People Killed in Kashmiri Nationalist Fighter Attacks Tuesday Marking the 3rd Phase of General Elections to Choose New State Government||U.S. Secretary of State for South Asia Meets Musharraf in Islamabad|| STORY: Suspected Kashmiri nationalists set off a bomb in a bus near Jammu on Wednesday, killing one man and wounding 19, a day after the bloodiest phase yet in Kashmiri state elections, Indian police said.

The bus caught fire after the blast near Jammu, the winter capital of Kashmir, where India is struggling to quell a 13-year uprising for self-determination.

No one had claimed responsibility.

Eighteen people died on Tuesday in a series of nationalist fighter attacks in four districts of Jammu and Kashmir, where voting is under way to choose a new state government. The dead included eight people on a bus in Jammu province who were fired upon.

Some 620 people have died since the elections were announced in early August. A final round of voting is scheduled for October 8.

The conflict in Kashmir is at the heart on tensions between India and Pakistan over the past 50 years since the two countries independence from Britain.

The two countries nearly went to war after following a deadly attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi in December, and more than a million troops are still deployed along their borders. Tensions eventually eased amid intense international mediation.

U.S. OFFICIAL CALLS FOR PAKISTAN-INDIA DIALOGURE

Meanwhile, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Christina Rocca met Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf on Tuesday and called for dialogue with India over the disputed Kashmir region.

India has refused Pakistan's offer of talks over Kashmir, saying Islamabad must first end what it calls its sponsorship of cross-border infiltration by Kashmiri nationalists into Indian-held Kashmir.

Pakistan denies the accusation, saying it has clamped down on extremist groups in Pakistan since backing the U.S.-led war on terror last September.

"The Pakistan side called for de-escalation and for India to reciprocate the significant measures taken by Pakistan to defuse tensions," a foreign ministry statement said, referring to talks between Rocca and Pakistani officials.

Rocca flew to Islamabad from Karachi, where she discussed issues including security at the U.S. consulate. The Karachi mission was moved to an undisclosed location after 12 Pakistanis were killed in a car bomb attack outside the consulate in June.

PHOTO CAPTION

The bodies of victims of a suspected Kashmiri nationalist attack lie in a hospital in Hiranagar, 70 km (45 miles) from Jammu, India, Tuesday Oct. 1, 2002. Fresh violence came as polls opened for the third phase in state elections, when Kashmiri fighters opened fire early Tuesday on a bus in Hiranagar, a town in Indian-controlled Jammu Kashmir, killing at least nine people. (AP Photo/Channi Anan