At least 13 people were killed and 36 others were wounded when gunmen attacked the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, Afghan officials said early Thursday.
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Elite Afghan forces surrounded the walled compound and eventually worked their way inside, according to a senior interior ministry official. “We’ve heard some gunfire – it’s been fairly quiet but a few sporadic bursts of gunfire and shots”.
American University of Afghanistan+ has ended, a government spokesman said on Thursday, after at least 10 people were killed and scores were wounded.
“Right now a clearance operation is continuing by a technique team that is criminal”.
He remembered that moment when he and his colleagues understood they could not escape and tried to put up a defence by pushing chairs and desks against the door of the classroom where they were, ABC News said. Most appeared to have got away.
“Many students jumped from the second floor, some broke their legs and some hurt their head trying to escape”, Abdullah Fahimi, a student who escaped, told reporters. He injured his ankle making the leap.
The victims also included three police and three guards.
“I heard explosions and gunfire is going on close by… our classroom is filled with smoke and dust”, an anxious student told AFP by telephone, before fleeing the campus.
The attack began with a suicide auto bombing at a university gate, which paved the way for two attackers to storm the compound at dusk, when the elite private university is usually packed with students.
In this month, It is the second time that the university or its staff have been targeted by the militants.
The school was the scene of an apparent terror attack August 7, when two faculty members were abducted at gunpoint by unidentified gunman.
“At the moment of the explosion, I was at the university – it was during class time”, Ali Altae, one of the students, told RT by phone from his home.
The university opened for enrollment in 2006 to both men and women, and quickly became a prestigious education choice for some of Afghanistan’s elites, offering undergraduate and graduate degrees taught in English.
“An attack on a university is an attack on the future of Afghanistan”.
With electricity cut off by security forces to restrict the movement of the attackers, dozens of family members anxiously awaited news of their loved ones outside the security cordon.
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”.
No group has claimed responsibility yet for the attack.
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The attack began on August 24 with a large explosion that officials said was a vehicle bomb followed by gunfire as the suspected militants breached the walls of the complex.
