Kabul:

Twelve people, including seven students, three police and two security guards, were killed in an attack by gunmen on the American University in the Afghan capital, Kabul, police said on Thursday.

Fraidoon Obaidi, chief of the Kabul police Criminal Investigation Department, told Reuters 44 people were wounded, including 35 students.

Security forces killed two suspected militants to end the attack on the compond, which began on Wednesday evening with a large explosion followed by gunfire, a police official said earlier.

Witnesses said the attackers blew up an outer wall before bursting into the university compound at about 7:00pm on Wednesday.

One university guard died in the attack, while dozens of people were wounded by bullets or shrapnel or injured themselves while jumping from second-storey windows.

At least one foreign teacher was wounded, said Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi, and that about 700 students had been rescued.

Local media reported that hundreds of students had been rescued during the overnight operation, many of whom tweeted anguished messages for help, with some using classroom furniture to barricade the doors.

Among them was Associated Press photojournalist Massoud Hossaini, who was said to be wounded and later managed to escape with some fellow students.

The attack started on Wednesday evening, when the private university is usually packed with students, many of them working professionals doing part-time courses.

‘I heard explosions and gunfire is going on close by... our classroom is filled with smoke and dust,’ an anxious student told AFP by telephone, before fleeing the campus.

Authorities refused to confirm whether any hostages had been taken.

NATO military advisers were helping Afghan forces to respond to the attack, a US official said, without specifying how many troops were involved.

Many of the wounded were rushed into waiting ambulances outside the university on stretchers, as erratic gunshots rang out through the night from inside the complex.

Obaidi declined to confirm details on casualties but the health ministry said late Wednesday that at least one person had been killed and 26 others wounded, many of them critically.

‘We send our thoughts and prayers to the families of those killed and our heartfelt wishes for a speedy recovery to those wounded,’ the US National Security Council said in a statement, strongly condemning the attack.

Taliban offensive

The elite American University of Afghanistan, which opened in 2006 and enrolls more than 1,700 students, is seen as a high-profile target for militants partly because it attracts foreign faculty members.

The two foreign professors at the university were seized from their vehicle on August 7, as the kidnappers smashed the passenger window and hauled them away at gunpoint.

It was apparently the first reported abduction related to a private university in Afghanistan.

Their whereabouts are still unknown and no group so far has publicly claimed responsibility for the abductions, the latest in a series of kidnappings of foreigners in the conflict-torn country.

The Afghan capital is infested with organised criminal gangs who stage kidnappings for ransom, often targeting foreigners and wealthy Afghans, and sometimes handing them over to insurgent groups.

The uptick in violence comes as the Taliban escalate nationwide attacks, underscoring the worsening security situation in Afghanistan since NATO forces ended their combat mission at the end of 2014.

Afghan forces backed by US troops are seeking to head off a potential Taliban takeover of Lashkar Gah, the capital of the southern opium-rich province of Helmand.

The turmoil convulsing Helmand, blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency, has left thousands of people displaced, sparking a humanitarian crisis as officials report food and water shortages.

The Taliban have also closed in on Kunduz — the northern city they briefly seized last year in their biggest military victory so far — leaving Afghan forces stretched on multiple fronts.

But coalition forces have insisted that neither Kunduz nor Lashkar Gah are at risk of falling to the insurgents.