North Atlantic Treaty Organisation military advisers are helping Afghan forces respond to an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul on Wednesday, a United States official said.
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Some of the 26 wounded were in serious condition, said health ministry spokesman Waheed Majroh, who also reported one fatality.
Fires are burning on the campus, said Tarek Mahjari, a reporter for Tolo News who reported the details in a phone interview with his employer.
It comes less than three weeks after the school was forced to suspend campus operations after two teachers – an American and Australian – were kidnapped at gunpoint.
The identity of the attackers is unknown and no group has claimed credit.
Hossaini told the AP that he heard and explosion and went to the window of his classroom. So dozens if not hundreds of students are inside the university and a number of the buildings there.
Still, many of them were injured before Hossaini and other managed to escape through an emergency gate when two grenades were thrown inside. The report said attackers had infiltrated the heavily guarded campus.
Police spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told the Associated Press that teams were on campus searching “for the terrorists”.
A senior interior ministry official said elite Afghan forces had surrounded the university compound and gunfire was continuing.
Member of NATO’s Resolute Support mission are acting as advisors to the Afghan special operators, the U.S. State Department said.
Photographer Massoud Hossaini of the Associated Press, wrote in a now-deleted tweet sent from the campus that he was hearing gunshots and explosions, NPR reported, before alerting followers that “this maybe my last tweets”.
“We are stuck inside and very afraid”. Many friends and relatives sought news or tried to console and reassure one another. “Please pray for his recovery”, Noori tweeted. Many students were returning from evening prayers, he said. About 1,300 students attend undergraduate and graduate programs at the university.
Afghani special police helped quell an armed attack on American University Kabul, but at least seven people died and many more are wounded.
The American University of Afghanistan opened in 2006. In a message at the time, Mark English, its American president, said, “AUAF is a lasting legacy of the U.S.in Afghanistan, and we will not be deterred”. He estimated that about 300 students might still be inside the university complex.
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Head of Kabul hospitals, Salim Rasouli, said they know that at least one guard was killed and 21 students, including four girls, were wounded and brought to hospitals, Mukhtar reports.
