“I heard explosions and gunfire is going on close by. our class is filled with smoke and dust”, an anxious student told AFP by telephone. The shots broke the windows, and Hossani fell and cut his hands on the glass.
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Then he and other students barricaded themselves in the classroom using chairs and desks before making a dash for safety outside. “Help we are stuck inside AUAF and shooting flollowed [sic] by Explo this maybe my last tweets”, he wrote.
Hossaini escaped through an emergency gate with nine other students to a residence near campus, and were later evacuated by Afghan security forces.
There are still several students and faculty members trapped on campus, including Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photojournalist Massoud Hossaini.
Eyewitnesses said they heard gunshots and a blast at 7:50 p.m. local time when students were gathering and eating together.
A spokesman for the Interior Ministry said a special operations force was being sent inside to search for attackers. The U.S. embassy in Kabul did issue a security message warning U.S. citizens of the attack and advising them to avoid the area until further notice.
Just two weeks ago, two American University employees – an American and an Australian – were kidnapped at gunpoint in Kabul by men in military uniforms.
The status of the attackers remains unknown, including who they are.
The attack, which underscores the worsening security situation in Afghanistan, comes as Taliban insurgents step up their summer fighting season against the Western-backed Kabul government. “They looked like they had been shot in the back”.
“There might have been hundreds of students and staff of the university when it was attacked”, student Makia Muneer said.
Afghanistan-based journalist Bilal Sarwary told CNN that relatives of people still trapped at the university said the militants were throwing grenades and appeared in for the long haul, having brought snacks of Red Bull and dates with them, as well as maps of the campus. Its president, Mark English, confirmed to the Associated Press an attack is underway.
USA officials said the American forces embedded with Afghan units are in a non-combat, purely advisory role. It offers several arts courses modeled on the USA system and has about 1700 full-time and part-time students.
No one has claimed the university attack.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, which was the second directed at the university this month.
When the explosions and gunfire rang out at the elite American University, desperate calls for help were made by students trapped inside classrooms.
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U.S. State Department spokesperson Elizabeth Trudeau said that the department is working to locate and assist all U.S. personnel impacted by the attack.
