Afghanistan university attack leaves more than a dozen dead

Gunmen have attacked the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul leaving 13 people dead including an academic and seven students, according to reports.

The attack started yesterday evening local time, according to Reuters, with a car bomb followed by gunfire in the campus.

Two gunmen were shot dead, but a professor, seven students, three policemen and two security guards were also killed, according to the news agency.

Students jumped from the second floor, some injuring themselves, or barricaded themselves into classrooms when the attack happened, reports said.  

No group is reported to have yet claimed responsibility for the attack, but earlier this month two of the university’s English-language academics, an American and an Australian, were abducted at gunpoint by kidnappers dressed as Afghan security forces just outside the campus.

At the time, the university said that it was reviewing security and would put extra measures in place.

Mark English, president of the university, said that the institution remained “undeterred in our vital mission of providing a quality higher education experience for all our Afghan students”. The university website has not yet posted a response to the latest attack on its website.

The university admitted its first class of 53 students in 2006, following support from the Afghan government and grants from the United States Agency for International Development.

It now has more than 1,700 full and part-time students. It bills itself as Afghanistan’s only private, not-for-profit, “non-partisan” and co-educational university. 

david.matthews@tesglobal.com