Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the attackers were armed with grenades and automatic weapons.
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Information on casualties remained uncertain, but the Afghan Public health Ministry said one guard was killed and at least 21 people were wounded, six critically.
US special operations forces are accompanying Afghan forces on about 10 percent of their missions, the spokesman for the USA military effort there said Thursday.
The attack occurred at one of the busiest times for the school year.
English is a fluent Arabic speaker and linguist who also holds a bachelor’s degree in engineering from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and a master’s in civil government from Campbell University. Afghanistan frequently accuses militants it says are in Pakistan for attacks on its soil. Our embassy in Kabul, as well as our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation counterparts of the Resolute Support Mission, are closely monitoring the situation as we are. We understand this situation is ongoing.
The U.S. military was assisting Afghan forces who responded to the attack, U.S. Army Colonel Michael T. Lawhorn told Fox News. Members of the Afghan Special Police Force were on the scene, where it’s just after 8 p.m. local time. An investigation had traced them to an Afghan company “whose spillover signal affects some areas along the Pak-Afghan border”, it said, without further detail.
Mujib Mashal, a writer for The New York Times, said on Twitter that police said a vehicle bomb exploded.
Student Freshta Ibrahimi told NPR that she was eating dinner with friends on campus when explosions and gunfire rang out.
“Students need help. They are stuck inside classes”, he wrote on Twitter.
The AP later reported that he was safe and had escaped from the school. “Attacking schools, universities & innocent people is a war crime”.
The growing number of students attending university, especially women, is hailed as a success story in Afghanistan since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban regime, which banned women’s education.
The private, independent university, which opened in 2006, has about 1,300 students. It has produced 29 Fulbright scholars and maintains partnerships with many USA colleges, such as Stanford, Georgetown and the University of California system.
Ghani, in a statement, called the assault “a cowardly attempt” to hinder progress in Afghanistan.
But it has been no stranger to threats of violence since its creation.
The campus attack comes two weeks after two teachers at the university – an Australian and an American – were abducted by unknown gunmen in Kabul.
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Hossaini, who won the Pulitzer Price in 2012 in Breaking News Photography for taking the image of a horrified 12-year-old girl in the wake of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul, had tweeted about his ordeal, even saying it could be his last.
