A suicide bomber detonated his motorcycle Wednesday close to the Afghan parliament in Kabul and offices run by foreign companies, officials said.

There was no immediate information on deaths or injuries, an interior ministry spokesman said, but people on the scene said that heavy casualties were feared.

"There was an explosion in Se-rahi Alawdin (west Kabul). It was a motorcycle explosion. At this stage we don't know what the target of the attack was," the spokesman said. "It was a suicide explosion."

Witnesses reported seeing fragments of a motorcycle and human body parts likely to be from a suicide attacker.

An AFP photographer on the scene said that a minibus and car had been badly damaged in the blast, which took place in front of a psychiatric hospital and close to a mosque just after 8:00 am (0330 GMT)

The last bomb blast in Kabul came on January 4 when a policeman was killed and three people were wounded as the officer tried to defuse a homemade bomb.

The last major attack in the Afghan capital came last month, when two suicide bombers targeted an Afghan army bus, killing five military personnel.

There are about 140,000 international troops in Afghanistan fighting Taliban militants.