Seven guards killed by roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan

Kabul: Seven Afghan security guards were killed on Saturday when their car hit a roadside bomb in eastern Afghanistan, police said.

The guards, who worked for a road construction company, hit the bomb in the Sarkano district of Kunar province, a mountainous region close to the border with Pakistan, said provincial police chief General Abdul Jalal.

Also in Kunar, a gunman shot and killed the police chief of Chawkey district on Friday night, Jalal said. One man was arrested in connection with the case.

Last year was Afghanistan's most violent since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. More than 6,500 people died in insurgency-related violence.