At least 13 people were killed after militants armed with a vehicle bomb, grenades and automatic weapons attacked the American University of Afghanistan on Wednesday, police said Thursday.
Advertisement
Rahami said one foreign teacher had been wounded.
No group has so far claimed responsibility.
The management of the elite American University of Afghanistan, which opened in 2006 and enrols more than 1,700 students, was not immediately reachable for comment. While the number of attackers appears to be unknown, Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of the police’s Criminal Investigation Unit, told AFP at least two attackers were killed in the dramatic rescue.
Six students, one professor, three police and two security officers were in the 10-hour assault at the university, according to the Interior Ministry.
Dejan Panic, the program director at Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, said 18 people wounded in the attack, including five women, were admitted. Ghani spoke by telephone with Pakistan’s army chief, Raheel Sharif, and demanded “serious action”, his office said. There were 15 other students with Hossaini when they first heard the explosion on the southern side of the campus.
“I went to the window to see what was going on, and I saw a person in normal clothes outside”.
Reports from AP suggest that the students had locked themselves in the classroom, pushing chairs and tables against the doors and windows. “Two attackers were gunned down”, he said. Hossani and nine others then escaped through an emergency exit.
“As we were running, I saw someone lying on the ground face down”.
Hossaini and the other students took refuge in a residential house near the campus and were later safely evacuated by Afghan security forces.
The U.N.’s assistance mission in Afghanistan called the attack an “atrocity”.
Afghan security forces stand guard after an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, Aug. 25, 2016.
The assault comes after two professors at the university – an American and Australian – were kidnapped in the heart of Kabul earlier this month, the latest in a series of abductions of foreigners in the conflict-torn country. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
Advertisement
The Taliban, who have been fighting to overthrow the Kabul government for 15 years, regard foreign civilians as legitimate targets.
