12 die in Kabul university siege

Students among dead in hours-long terrorist rampage

KABUL // At least 12 people were killed and dozens were wounded in an attack on the American University of Afghanistan yesterday.

The gunmen held the sprawling campus on the outskirts of the city under siege for hours before being killed in a police operation.

The attack underscored how despite efforts by the Afghan authorities to improve security, militants were still able to stage large-scale attacks.

The dead included seven students, said Sediq Sediqqi, an interior ministry spokesman.

Three police officers and two security guards were also killed.

No group claimed responsibility for the assault but suspicion was likely to fall on the Taliban.

The interior ministry said that 36 people were wounded, among them nine police officers.

“Most of the dead were killed by gunshots near the windows of their classrooms,” Mr Sediqqi said.

The assault began just before 7pm on Wednesday – a time when hundreds of students typically attend evening classes – with a suicide car bombing at the university’s entrance.

The blast breached the security walls and allowed two other terrorists, besides the driver of the vehicle, to enter the campus, Mr Sediqqi said. They were armed with grenades and automatic weapons.

The siege of the university last- ed almost nine hours, before police killed the two assailants, he said.

More than 200 people, mostly students who had been trapped in university buildings were rescued by special police units.

Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said earlier that one foreign teacher was among the wounded.

Afghan president Ashraf Ghani visited some of the wounded in hospital yesterday and extended condolences to the victims’ families. Mr Ghani said the assault would strengthen “our goal to eliminate the roots of terrorism”.

The university, on the western edge of Kabul, was established in 2006 to offer arts courses modelled on the US system, and has more than 1,000 students. Massoud Hossaini, a pho- tographer, was in a classroom with 15 other students when he heard an explosion on the south side of the campus.

“I went to the window to see what was going on, and I saw a person in normal clothes outside,” Mr Hossaini said.

“He shot at me and shattered the glass,” the student said, adding that he fell on the glass and cut his hands.

The students then barricaded themselves inside the classroom, pushing chairs and desks against the door, and staying on the floor.

Mr Hossaini said at least two grenades were thrown into the classroom, wounding several of his classmates.

Mr Hossaini and nine students escapeed from the campus through an emergency gate.