The Afghan Health Ministry said that a security guard was killed in the attack and that at least 26 people had been wounded.
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The presidential office said the attack was “orchestrated” from Pakistan, Afghanistan’s longtime regional nemesis often accused of harbouring the Taliban.
English was an Army officer while studying at UT, said Elaine Horwitz, a professor of curriculum and instruction at UT and former director of the graduate program in foreign language education. According to the authorities, there was a auto bomb, after that blast followed gunfire.
Other trapped students and staff tweeted or posted on Facebook their desperate pleas for help.
Ahmad Shaheer, a student, told Reuters by telephone that he was trapped inside the university.
Dozens of students and foreign staffers who could not get away barricaded themselves inside classrooms and safe rooms.
Among them was Associated Press photojournalist Massoud Hossaini, who was said to be wounded and later managed to escape with some fellow students.
” ‘I went to the window to see what was going on, and I saw a person in normal clothes outside”.
“We are stuck inside our classroom and there are bursts of gunfire”, he said.
The explosion tore down a wall and created a breach, through which two other armed men entered the campus, where more than 750 students and teachers were present.
“They looked like they had been shot in the back”.
Security forces were alerted to the campus after students tweeted reports of gunfire and explosions and begged for help.
Another challenge to the country’s security is the emergence of a local branch of Islamic State, which last month carried out triple suicide attacks that killed some 80 people in Kabul.
Three attackers were involved in the attack, Rahimi said.
The attack comes two weeks after two university staff – one American, one Australian – were kidnapped by unknown gunmen.
The U.S. Embassy was working to account for all of its personnel, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau told reporters. We also want to thank the Afghan government and Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) for their response to the attack and their ongoing assistance to AUAF.
The attack, carried out by two unidentified gunmen, left at least 12 people dead, seven of whom were students. “These advisers are not taking a combat role but advising Afghan counterparts”, she said.
The attack at American University, a private college in the Afghanistan capital, was reported Wednesday night local time by observers on the ground and news organizations.
TOLO News pointed out that the attack follows an August 7 kidnapping of two professors at the university.
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The attack ended early today at the campus on the outskirts of Kabul.
