Kabul’s American University hit
Militant attack on campus ends with 10 dead, dozens hurt
KABUL, Afghanistan — An attack on the American University of Afghanistan has ended, a senior police officer said today, after at least 10 people were killed and dozens were wounded.
Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said the dead were seven students, two police officers and a security guard.
“Most of the dead were killed by gunshots near the windows of their classrooms,” Sediqqi said.
At least 37 people had been wounded, he said, including seven police officers. Kabul Police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said one foreign teacher had been wounded.
The attack began late Wednesday with a suicide car bomb attack at the university entrance that breached the walls and enabled “terrorists” to enter the campus, Sediqqi said. The siege lasted almost nine hours before police killed the two assailants.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility for the attack on the university, which sits on the edge of Kabul. It was established in 2006 to offer liberal-arts courses modeled on the U.S. system and has more than 1,000 students enrolled.
Dejan Panic, the program director at Kabul’s Emergency Hospital, said 18 people wounded in the attack, including five women, had been admitted. He said three were “seriously” wounded, probably from automatic gunfire.
Photojournalist Massoud Hossaini was in a classroom with 15 students when he heard an explosion on the southern flank of the campus.
“I went to the window to see what was going on and I saw a person in normal clothes outside. He shot at me and shattered the glass,” Hossaini 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. Hossaini said at least two grenades were thrown into the classroom, wounding several of his classmates.
Hossaini and about nine students later escaped from the campus through an emergency gate.
“As we were running I saw someone lying on the ground facedown, they looked like they had been shot in the back,” he said.
Hossaini and the other students took refuge in a residential house near the campus and were later safely evacuated by Afghan security forces.
The Pentagon said U.S. military advisers were on the ground with Afghan security forces at the university. Spokesman Adam Stump said the forces had been embedded with the Afghan units.
The attack on the university comes two weeks after two university staff members, an American and an Australian, were kidnapped from their car by unknown gunmen. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
The U.S. State Department condemned what it called “an attack on the future of Afghanistan.”
“We are in the process of accounting for all chief of mission personnel and working to locate and assist any U.S. citizens affected by these attacks,” it said, adding that it had no further information.
The Taliban, who have been fighting to overthrow the Kabul government for 15 years, regard foreign civilians as legitimate targets.