Afghanistan school attacked
American University in Kabul hit for second time this month
Afghan special forces backed by U.S. military advisers swept a college campus in Kabul on Wednesday after a militant attack rocked the the American University of Afghanistan.
A university security guard died in the hour-long attack of explosions and gunfire. Emergency Hospital in Kabul treated 19 wounded teachers and students.
Special forces teams combed the school, evacuating terrified students. Few details on the attackers were immediately available.
One or two gunmen, possibly wearing suicide vests, stormed the Kabul campus around 7 p.m. local time, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told Reuters. Scores of students and foreign professors barricaded themselves in classrooms, Sediqqi said.
“Many students jumped from the second floor. Some broke their legs, and some hurt their head trying to escape,” Abdullah Fahimi, a student who escaped, told Reuters. He said he injured his ankle making the leap.
CBS journalist Ahmad Mukhtar tweeted that he and some friends escaped the attack, but several other friends and professors were trapped. AP photographer Massoud Hossaini said he was in class with 15 students when he heard an explosion.
“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. He said he fell on glass, cutting his hand. Some students barricaded themselves into the classroom, the target of at least two grenades, he said. Hossaini said he and about nine students fled through an emergency gate.
“As we were running, I saw someone lying on the ground face down. They looked like they had been shot in the back,” he said.
Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told USA TODAY that “a small number of Resolute Support advisers” assisted at the scene in a non-combat role. Resolute Support is a NATO-led mission that trains and supports Afghan forces.
The school was the scene of an apparent terror attack Aug. 7, when two faculty members were abducted at gunpoint. The school was shut down, and a review of its security was conducted. The school resumed its normal operations a few days later. The teachers, an American and an Australian, still are missing.
The university, which has 1,700 students, is an internationally supported, private university founded a decade ago in Kabul.
“AUAF is dedicated to providing a world-class higher education that prepares students from Afghanistan and the region to be tomorrow’s leaders,” the school says on its website.
“As we were running, I saw someone lying on the ground face down. They looked like they had been shot in the back.” AP photographer Massoud Hossaini, a witness