Six guards beheaded in Afghan bank robbery

KABUL - Six private security guards were poisoned and then beheaded in northern Afghanistan during a bank robbery, a police spokesman said Tuesday.

The incident happened at Kabul Bank’s branch in Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, said Sherjan Durani, a spokesman for the provincial police chief.

“This morning when the staff of the bank came to their office, they found six beheaded bodies of the guards that were locked inside a room,” Durani said.

Initial information revealed that an unknown number of robbers, who had been invited by the guards for dinner, first poisoned the security personnel and then beheaded them, Durani said.

Cash worth more than $200,000 was missing, he said.

Elsewhere in the northern region, a roadside bomb killed four civilians and injured three others in Faryab province Monday, NATO and an Afghan official said.

The civilians were trying to help police, who had been attacked by insurgents, when their vehicle was struck by the bomb, NATO said in a statement.

Afzal Emamzada, a provincial senior police official, said those killed in the incident in Qaisar district, were tribal elders.

More than 400 civilians have been killed and 860 injured by Taliban roadside bomb attacks since the beginning of this year, according to NATO records.