One dead, 14 injured in militant attack on American University in Afghanistan

At least one student was killed and 14 wounded after militants attacked the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul, trapping students in classrooms amid explosions and automatic gunfire.

Witnesses said the attackers blew up an outer wall before bursting into the university compound around 7pm on Wednesday night.

Student Mohammed Khalid Feroz said he was playing basketball at the university gym when he heard the first explosion and rushed to escape with other students. He returned to look for his friends only to find a professor bleeding profusely from his throat.

“He was badly injured. I took him to a dorm,” said Feroz, who had attempted to provide first aid.

Ten minutes after the attack began, dozens of officers from the Afghan Special Police Force (CRU) cordoned off the scene. The ministry of interior’s spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told media they were heading inside to look for the “terrorists”.

Outside the university, a crying man, who declined to give his name, said his brother had called him from inside the university after suffering three gunshot wounds. “I don’t know where (in the university) he is,” the man said.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, which comes just weeks after two university professors – an American and an Australian – were kidnapped at gunpoint nearby. Their whereabouts remain unknown.

Many students were trapped inside the university during the attack, and tweeted or texted desperate calls for help.

Massoud Hossaini, a photographer for the Associated Press, was in class when the attack began, and tweeted: “Help we are stuck inside AUAF and shooting flollowed [sic] by Explo this maybe my last tweets.”

Hossaini, who was in class at the time of the attack, managed to escape with nine other students through the northern emergency gate.

Describing the attack to the AP, he said: “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.”

The students then barricaded themselves into the classroom, before escaping through an emergency exit.

“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.

Local hospital staff said that at least one person had been killed and 14 wounded – a figure that is expected to rise.