The blast occurred at 7:50 p.m. local, when students were gathering and eating together.
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At least seven people have been killed and more than 30 others injured after gunmen launched an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on Wednesday (23 August) evening.
Officials tell CNN that it is too early to comment.
The military has started a search for the attackers.
“We strongly condemn the attack on American University in Kabul”. Quickly, the lights went out in Samin’s classroom. “It was very dark, everyone was running. Everyone started screaming”, said Samin, who is a USA citizen. “(It) was the scariest moment in my life. “I was just thinking about my son and daughter who are in [the US]”. The nonprofit, coed university offers a full undergraduate curriculum, some graduate programs and English-language courses, including many taught by visiting faculty from the United States or other Western countries.
No group has asserted responsibility for the violence on Wednesday, but the two-pronged assault was typical of the complex attacks periodically carried out by Taliban insurgents against government and foreign facilities in Afghanistan.
Witnesses described a chaotic scene.
“Everyone looked around the room looking for an escape”, he said. “Everyone was running out of there”. Nearly immediately, they heard a loud explosion. A guard had injuries that appeared to be a result of one of the explosions, he said.
Among them was Associated Press photojournalist Massoud Hossaini, who was said to be wounded and later managed to escape with some fellow students.
Bilal Sawary, a journalist in Kabul, said he’d heard from several people on campus.
They were armed with grenades and automatic weapons.
The school opened in 2006. According to media reports, there were two assailants who entered the campus after hitting the main gate with a auto.
One after another, such places – high-end hotels, restaurants frequented by foreigners, even cultural centers where young Afghan performed arts – have come under attack, limiting the movement of expatriates in Kabul and keeping the local population in constant fear of unpredictable violence.
The attack comes just weeks after two instructors, an American and an Australian, were kidnapped from their SUV outside the campus. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
The U.S. Embassy in Kabul issued a warning that American citizens should stay away from the area, and should consider leaving the country. “A small number of advisers from the Resolute Support Mission is now assisting Afghan forces as they respond”.
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“These advisors are not taking a combat role, but advising their Afghan counterparts”, U.S. Army Colonel Michael T. Lawhorn told Fox News. Officials say that most kidnappings in Kabul are conducted by criminal gangs.
