Attack on Afghan university leaves 19 dead

AFGHAN MEDIA REPORTED A BOOK FAIR, ATTENDED BY A NUMBER OF DIGNITARIES, WAS BEING HELD IN THE UNIVERSITY AT THE TIME OF THE SHOOTING.

Gunmen stormed Kabul University on Monday as it hosted a book fair attended by the Iranian ambassador to Afghanistan, sparking an hourslong gun battle and leaving at least 19 dead and 22 wounded at the war-torn country’s largest school.

The ministry’s spokesman, Tariq Arian, also said there were three attackers involved in the assault, all of whom were killed in the ensuing firefight.

The attackers were targeting students and fired on them as they fled in the Afghan capital, one witness said. “They were shooting at every student they saw,” Fathullah Moradi told Reuters, saying he had managed to escape through one of the university’s gates with a group of friends..

Ahmad Samim, a university student, told journalists he saw militants armed with pistols and Kalashnikov assault rifles firing at the school, the country’s oldest with some 17,000 students. He said the attack happened at the university’s eastern side where its law and journalism faculty teach.

While Afghan officials declined to discuss the book fair, Iran’s semi-official ISNA news agency reported on Sunday that Iranian ambassador Bahador Aminian and cultural attaché Mojtaba Noroozi were scheduled to inaugurate the fair, which would host some 40 Iranian publishers.

Iranian diplomats have been targeted previously by attacks in the country and nearly sparked a war between the two countries.

In 1998, Iran held the Taliban responsible for the deaths of nine Iranian diplomats who were working in its consulate in northern Afghanistan and sent reinforcements to the 950-kilometre long border that Iran and Afghanistan share

However, the Taliban said their fighters were not involved in the assault. No other group immediately claimed responsibility, but suspicion immediately fell on the Islamic State group.

Last month, the Islamic State group sent a suicide bomber into an education centre in the capital’s Shiite dominated neighbourhood of Dasht-e-Barchi, killing 24 students and injuring more than 100. The Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan has declared war on Afghanistan’s minority Shiite Muslims and have staged dozens of attacks since emerging in 2014.

Violence has plagued Afghanistan while government and Taliban negotiators have been meeting in Qatar to try to broker a peace deal and as the US brings home its troops.