Six guards killed in Afghan bank robbery

Six Afghan private security guards were poisoned and fatally stabbed during a bank robbery in northern Afghanistan, police said yesterday.

Alhaj Zaher Vahdat, deputy governor of Balkh province, said one person has been arrested in connection with the robbery on Monday night at Kabul Bank in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif. Sherjan Durani, a police spokesman, said someone mixed the poison into the guards' food. The guards showed evidence of having vomited, he said. The robbers stabbed the guards, then fled with $269,000.