Cyber-Cafe Blast Kills 2 Afghans

Officials Sunday were investigating whether a suicide bomber caused an explosion at an Internet cafe in the capital that killed two Afghans and injured five.

The blast occurred inside the Park Net Cafe in Kabul’s upscale Shahr-i-Naw district, which is popular among foreigners.

Police cordoned off the area around the cafe, whose windows were blown out.

Kabul police chief Gen. Akram Khakrezwal said all the victims were Afghans.

“It was an explosion, but we still don’t know if it was a suicide attack,” Khakrezwal told reporters near the scene.

He didn’t elaborate.

But Nick Downie, head of the Afghan NGO Security Organization, which advises relief groups and sent representatives to the scene, said the chest injuries on one dead man suggested a suicide attack.

Khakrezwal said that police had detained three men -- a guard, the owner of the cafe and another manager -- for questioning but it was too early to say who might have been responsible.

If confirmed as a suicide attack, the explosion would add to tension already stoked by warnings that a criminal group might try to kidnap a foreigner in Kabul.

Aid workers have been told the group may seize a foreigner to exchange for several men who were recently arrested on suspicion of being involved in the monthlong abduction of three United Nations workers last year.

Afghanistan has seen several deadly suicide attacks since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.

The most recent was an attack by a man laden with hand grenades.

That killed an American woman and an Afghan girl on a Kabul street in October.