At least 13 people are dead and dozens more injured after a almost nine-hour attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on Wednesday.
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APPHOTO XRG120: An Afghan security official walks after an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
Some used classroom furniture to barricade the doors while others made a mad scramble to escape through windows from high floors.
Only two weeks ago, two of the university’s foreign professors – a USA national and an Australian – were kidnapped at gunpoint.
At least 13 people were killed and dozens wounded in an overnight assault on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. “Two attackers were gunned down”, Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of Kabul police’s Criminal Investigation Department, told AFP without offering any details.
The US said it was closely monitoring the situation in Kabul following the university attack and that forces from the US-led coalition were involved in the response in an advise-and-assist role.
Student Freshta Ibrahimi told NPR that she was eating dinner with friends on campus when explosions and gunfire rang out.
A U.S. defense official said a team of United States military advisors are helping Afghan forces to respond to the attack, but not in a combat role.
The English-language university first opened in 2006 with USA funding, and is the country’s top institution for higher education, attracting many young Afghans.
“Help we are stuck inside AUAF and shooting flollowed [sic] by Explo this maybe my last tweets”, he wrote. Some 35 students and nine police were injured and about 750 students and staff were rescued from the university. Hossaini said at least two grenades were thrown into the classroom, wounding several of his classmates. “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 to AP.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the second directed at the university this month.
State Department Director of Office of Press Relations Elizabeth Trudeau later read a statement saying that they “condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms”. But near midnight, though the sounds of gunfire had ebbed, there were still occasional outbursts, and officials said they were still unsure how many attackers might still be alive, and how many people might still be pinned down, hurt or killed.
At the time, the university said that it was reviewing security and would put extra measures in place.
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The school opened in 2006.
