A Taliban-linked group kidnapped some 35 professors and around a dozen students from Kandahar University in 2014, when their bus was attacked in Ghazni province, 150 kilometres from Kabul.
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About 16 people were killed after militants stormed the American University of Afghanistan on Wednesday evening, in a almost 10-hour raid. The cordon ended almost 10 hours after the gunmen charged the complex, reported AP, quoting a senior police official.
Seven students, three policemen, an equal number of security agents and the three assailants were among the dead, the police chief, Abdul Rahman Rahimi, told the press.
Twelve people were killed in an attack on a university in Kabul, the Afghan capital. “Further investigation of the attack is ongoing”, said a statement from the office of the President on Thursday. Two professors were abducted recently.
“We were in the class when we heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire”. “However, the university has already started the process to fix the damage caused by the attack so that the campus can reopen”.
Several gunman, some wearing suicide vest, were involved he said.
The university, located on the western edge of Kabul, was established in 2006 to offer liberal arts courses modeled on the US system, and has more than 1,000 students now enrolled.
Earlier this month one USA and one Australian professor working at the American University were kidnapped by gunmen.
Many of Ghazia’s peers barricaded themselves inside classrooms, pushing chairs and tables against the doors, while others made a mad scramble to jump from windows, suffering grievous injuries. Nine police officers and 36 students and staff were wounded, spokesman Sediq Sediqqi added.
Hundreds of trapped students were rescued during the overnight operation, many of whom tweeted desperate messages for help. Ghani also talked to COAS General Raheel Sharif, who expressed serious concern over attacks and categorically stated that Pakistan would not allow its soil to be used for terrorist activities against any other country. He said they were hearing bursts of gunfire outside. Afghan security forces backed by US military advisers stormed the campus, conducting a classroom-by-classroom manhunt and evacuating hundreds of students and teachers. The militants took up positions there and began battling security forces, including members of a rapid-response police force who arrived soon after the attack began. Their whereabouts remain unknown.
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Much of its funding has come from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers civilian foreign aid, and today the school has more than 1,700 full- and part-time students.
