A student at the university, Ahmad Shaheer told Reuters that they are inside the compound and there are foreign professors along with hundreds of students in the university.
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A spokesperson for the Interior Ministry told reporters at least seven students, three police officers and a security guard were among the fatalities. The siege of the university lasted nearly nine hours, before police killed the two assailants around 3.30 am, he added. “Don’t kill me I am very innocent”, he said on Twitter.
Sediqqi said most of those killed were shot near the windows of their classrooms and at least 37 people were wounded, including seven police officers.
“We are inside the university right now carrying on clearance operations”, Rahimi said.
“Dozens of students and staff” were stuck inside the American University of Afghanistan Wednesday as an apparent attack unfolded at the Kabul campus, TOLO News reported.
Muslim militant groups, mainly the Afghan Taliban and a local offshoot of the Islamic State group, have claimed a string of bomb attacks aimed at destabilizing Afghanistan and toppling the Western-backed government of Ghani.
(AP Photo/Rahmat Gul). A man wounded is assisted in an ambulance after a complex Taliban attack on the campus of the American University in the Afghan capital Kabul on Wednesday, Aug. 24, 2016. “I ran toward the emergency exit with other students, climbed the wall and jumped outside”.
The turmoil convulsing Helmand, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency, has left thousands of people displaced, sparking a humanitarian crisis as officials report food and water shortages.
Terrified students recounted barricading themselves in classrooms or jumping from the second floor in order to escape.
“We strongly condemn the attack on American University in Kabul”, the Prime Minister tweeted. He injured his ankle making the leap.”We were in the class when we heard a loud explosion followed by gunfire”. He added that he had also heard students shouting.
A foreign professor is among the many wounded in the firefight between the attackers and Afghan special police.
They were armed with grenades and automatic weapons.
Earlier this month, two teachers working at the university-an American and an Australian-were kidnapped while on their way from their guesthouse to the campus.
Almost 1,700 students, many either part-time or on scholarships, are enrolled at the American University of Afghanistan, which is locally referred to as AUAF.
It was praised by senior US officials as a sign of Afghanistan’s bright future, and as such was an obvious symbol of Western ambitions for the country – exactly the kind of symbol the Taliban and other militants have come to pursue as targets.
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Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions, the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreigners.
