At least one person was killed and 14 injured in an apparent attack on the American University of Afghanistan Wednesday. Hossani and nine others then escaped through an emergency exit. “He shot at me and shattered the glass”.
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“As we were running I saw someone lying on the ground face down, they looked like they had been shot in the back”, he said. University authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.
The university’s president, Mark English, tells The Associated Press, “we are trying to assess the situation”.
Dejan Panic, the program director at Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, said 18 people wounded in the attack, including five women, had been admitted.
Police spokesman Sediq Sediqqi says police and intelligence agency personnel are at the campus, on the western outskirts of Kabul. No one has yet claimed Wednesday’s university attack.
Student Mohammed Khalid Feroz said he was playing basketball at the university gym when he heard the first explosion and rushed to escape with other students. Spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the Department is accounting for its personnel and working to locate and assist USA citizens affected by the attack. He had no further details on the nature of the attack.
“There are a small number of Resolute Support advisers that are assisting their Afghan counterparts as Afghan forces are responding”, U.S. Army Col. Michael T. Lawhorn told Fox News.
The double assault came less than two weeks after two foreign professors at the elite American-run university were kidnapped from their vehicle outside the campus.
The university was established in 2006 to offer liberal arts courses modeled on the USA system.
The teachers’ whereabouts are still unknown.
According to the university’s official website, the American University of Afghanistan “opened its doors in 2006 with an initial enrollment of 50 students, and today enrolls more than 1,700 full and part-time students”.
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Citing reports of the attack on Wednesday, the State Department urged USA citizens in the area to exercise caution, avoid unnecessary movement, and monitor news outlets for updates on the situation.
