The American University of
Afghanistan in Kabul came under attack today, as security forces
exchanged gunfire with the attackers.
The gunfire that
was reported in the vicinity of the school has now stopped, according
to a source in the Kabul Police Force. The same source told ABC News
that two people were killed and five were injured in the attack.
The dead have not been publicly identified.
The U.S. State Department this morning acknowledged reports of the attack on an official Twitter account.
Massoud Hossaini, a photographer for The Associated Press, tweeted that he was trapped inside during the attack.
“Help we are stuck inside AUAF and shooting flollowed [sic] by Explo this maybe my last tweets,” he wrote.
The AP later reported that he was safe, and had escaped from the school.
The attackers managed to enter Noor Hospital, adjacent to the school, according to eyewitnesses.
The American University of Afghanistan opened in 2006, and was a pet project of former first lady Laura Bush, who helped launch the institution on a 2005 visit to Kabul, the capital.
Much of its funding has come from the U.S. Agency for International Development, which administers civilian foreign aid, and today has more than 1,700 full- and part-time students. It has produced 29 Fulbright Scholars and maintains partnerships with many U.S. colleges, such as Stanford, Georgetown and the University of California network.
The school says on its webpage that it "embraces diversity and community" in Afghanistan.
But it has been no stranger to threats of violence since its creation.
Two professors at the university -- one American and one Australian -- were abducted at gun point outside the university campus earlier this month, underscoring the deteriorating security situation in the capital and across the country more generally.
Also, two people employed by the university were
killed in 2014 when a suicide bomber set off an explosion inside of a
Kabul restaurant that was popular with ex-pats. (abc news)
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