Militants stormed the American University of Afghanistan on Wednesday evening, firing on students in an attack that killed at least 12 people and wounded at least 30, according to reports by The Washington Post and CNN.
An Afghan police official told CNN that those killed included seven students, three police officers, and two security guards.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but the two-pronged assault — a powerful explosion was set off nearby as the gunmen stormed onto the campus — was seen as typical of the complex attacks periodically carried out by Taliban insurgents against government and foreign facilities in Afghanistan.
A photographer for the Associated Press was in a classroom with other students during the attack. The photographer, Massoud Hossaini, told the AP that after hearing an explosion, he looked out the window and saw one gunman in “normal clothes.” The gunman fired at him, shattering the window, Mr. Hossaini said. He fell to the floor, cutting his hands on broken glass.
Mr. Hossaini said that as he and his classmates huddled on the floor, at least two grenades were thrown into the room, wounding several students. He and about other nine students later escaped from the campus through an emergency gate and took refuge in a house until they were evacuated by Afghan security forces.
The attack came two weeks after two instructors, an American and an Australian, were kidnapped from a car near the campus by unknown gunmen. Their whereabouts are still unknown.
Located in Kabul, the American University of Afghanistan is a private, nonprofit institution that currently enrolls about 1,700 full- and part-time students. It opened in 2006, and instruction is in English. The university was briefly shut down after the two instructors were abducted on August 7, but it reopened several days later for the final days of its semester.
