Twelve people were killed in an attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, a spokesman for the Chief of Kabul Police told CNN on Thursday, August 25.
Seven students, three policemen and two security guards were killed in the attack and Thirty-five students and nine police were injured and about 750 students and staff were rescued, Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi told the BBC.
Police searched the American University of Afghanistan early Thursday about 10 hours after the assault began and killed two of the attackers who stormed the campus with guns and explosives.
The gunmen detonated explosives and fired guns, witnesses said, causing some students and faculty to flee. Others hid inside buildings, a senior State Department official told CNN.
Police described the attack, which began at about 7 p.m., as “complex”. Special forces were on the scene along with American military advisers, the BBC said.
One of those trapped inside the university for several hours was Massoud Hossaini, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist, who tweeted his experience and pleaded for help.
The attack comes two weeks after two university staff – one American, one Australian – were kidnapped by unknown gunmen. Their whereabouts still remain unknown.
The school opened in 2006. It’s the only private, nonprofit coed university in the country and has about 1,700 full- and part-time students, CNN reported.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, August 25, condemned the bomb attack on the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul that left a security guard dead while injuring over 20 people.
“We strongly condemn the attack on American University in Kabul,” the Prime Minister tweeted.
“Condolences to the bereaved families and prayers with the injured.”