Kabul’s American University reopens after deadly attack

Hundreds of students returned yesterday to the elite American University in Kabul seven months after militants stormed the campus-including those wounded in the bloody assault that killed 16 people. Security has been increased at the campus in the Afghan capital after the attack last August, in which students trapped during the nearly 10-hour raid sent anguished pleas for help on social media. “I don’t think anything un-Islamic or against any group is taught here,” said Rahmatullah, a returning student who was one of those wounded in the attack. “It is just a centre to promote knowledge and that is going to succeed,” he said. The attack was one of the first major militant assaults on a prominent university in Afghanistan. The university, which opened in 2006 and has more than 1,700 students, was long seen as a high-profile target for militants, partly because it attracts foreign faculty members.

KABUL: Afghan students from the American University of Afghanistan wait for the start of classes at the beginning of a new term in Kabul. — AFP