Defence`s Feeds

The attack on the American University in Kabul on 24 August 2016 was unprecedented in many respects. For the first time, a ‘complex attack’ – often reserved for high-profile and well-guarded targets – hit an educational institution. It also came in the wake of an ideological campaign by circles in the Taleban movement that had demonised the American University Afghanistan (AUAF) as a centre of hostile ‘Western’ efforts. No group – including the Taleban – has officially claimed responsibility for this attack, leaving a lot of ambiguity. AAN’s Borhan Osman looks into the insurgency’s internal dynamics – the rise of new ideologues and young ultra-radicals influenced by them and their influence on Taleban decision-making – for clues about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of the assault.

An earlier dispatch by the AAN Team put together an account of what happened during the attack on AUAF and, in commemoration, gathered biographical details of the students and the lecturer killed.

Why AUAF – and who was the main target?

Previous attacks on educational facilities have been confined to schools in the countryside. They have not always been the act of insurgents; nor have they always been politically motivated. Some school were attacked as government institutions, others as a result of local conflicts about their location, property or similar issues. (1)

Attackers targeting schools in rural areas have long been able to get away with their actions since such assaults, particularly in faraway areas, rarely attract wider public attention or are of a comparatively small scale in a long-lasting war situation. However, in the attack on AUAF in Kabul, the assailants knew well that their actions would make waves.

Eyewitness accounts of the attack suggest the assailants did not look for specific individuals, offices or buildings. Survivors consistently recalled that the attackers went into classrooms where students were trying to barricade or hide themselves and shot at them at random, and this mainly during the initial one to two hours of the attack. When the university guards were joined by the Afghan commando forces to fight the assailants, they seem to have dug in. They appeared to simply want to do as much harm as they could and that the university and whoever they found in it were their general targets.

Additionally, two factors suggests that the university itself and its students were the target of the assault and that the attackers wanted to interrupt or end the AUAF’s activity by doing as much harm as they could to the people. One is the timing of the assault, which occurred during the university’s peak hour. The second is the complexity of the operation, involving a car bomb, possibly a suicide bomber and assailants armed with small arms and hand grenades.

The Wall Street Journal wrote that “the university has long been at high risk of attack from Taliban militants because of its association with foreigners.” But it is not known whether the attack was preceded by concrete threats.

Searching for clues about the perpetrators

No group has officially claimed the attack so far. But some international media and AAN contacts among Afghan authorities suspect the Taleban. (2) The movement emerges as the prime suspect as the assault bore the familiar hallmarks of a complex attack, and that type of attack has been typical of the Taleban’s modus operandi. (3) No other group has a proven capability of mounting such an attack in Kabul. (The bombing of the TUTAP rally on 23 July 2016 claimed by the Afghan chapter of the Islamic State, or Daesh, calling itself Islamic State Khorasan Province, or ISKP, possibly involved suicide bombers but was not a complex attack on a fortified target. The same goes for an ISKP attack on a bank in Jalalabad in April 2015 that was carried out by a single suicide bomber and therefore does not qualify as a complex attack.) More importantly, there is no obvious reason why a small, new insurgent group like ISKP would not claim such an attack, as they are usually much more publicity-thirsty than the Taleban, the dominant insurgent actor.

ISKP has even claimed attacks in the past that it had definitely not carried out and even attacks that never happened, such as the alleged killing of ministerial staff in Kabul in August 2016 or a bomb attack on police in Jalalabad in May 2016. Thus, the Taleban – defined in the broadest sense, to include any network that operates under its brand, no matter how close or loose the connection is – remains the chief suspect.

Attacks by the Taleban against fully civilian targets are also not unprecedented. It has conducted numerous attacks, including on hotels or restaurants frequented by common Afghans (Serena and Spozhmai) or mainly foreign civilians (La Taverna, Park Palace and Le Jardin) and on the audience of a theatre performance (Lycee Istiqlal).

While the Taleban movement has officially remained silent about the incident, its members, on social media and in person, have left little doubt about the attack being an act of the Taleban. Soon after the attack was initiated, a number of Taleban social media activists, including members of its normal media operations, celebrated it in their comments. They applauded the attack as one on the tenets of the ‘Americanisation’ of Afghanistan. A day later, as voices critical of the attack came up from among common Afghans, including Taleban’s sympathisers, Taleban social media activists defended the attack. One person, a mid-level Taleb, who is part of the movement’s media operations, wrote, “The target is the enemy. If its educational centres are against Islamic principles and Afghan culture, there is no justification, from the Sharia point of view, to spare them. In the American University, anti-Islam lessons were taught.”

A more senior member of the movement, who said he personally did not follow who exactly carried out the attack, maintained he would not be surprised if the Taleban carried it out. He also did not respond directly to whether the attack was carried out by the Taleban. However, the background he provided about how the risk of an attack loomed large – combined with comments by Taleban social media activists – suggests the movement was the most plausible perpetrator.

This senior Taleban member added, though, that the feeling towards the AUAF among many Taleban foot soldiers he met in Pakistan during their training and amid commanders was of a hostile organisation: “The American University has been widely seen as a target that should be hit. Given that many Taleban read about the university in books [by ideologues in the movement], the attack looked inevitable.”

In these books, the university is depicted as a key centre of US efforts to stop the emergence of an Islamic government in Afghanistan. They include one by what many young Taleban call “the thinker of the modern jihad,” known by his pen name Abdul Hadi Mujahed. From the years of the anti-Soviet jihad until around 2011, he was a member of Hezb-e Islami and lived in a Gulf country for a considerable time. He is a Taleban theorist of the ‘clash of civilisations’ and believes that the West’s “cultural invasion” is far more dangerous and of longer consequences for Afghanistan than the military invasion. Now based in Peshawar, his views are not mandated officially by the movement, but many Taleban fighters and supporters see him as one of their main ideological sources. They attend his lessons and circulate his books despite the fact that his ideas have considerably varied from the movement’s main lines of thought. Written originally in Pashto, his works have been translated into Dari, Urdu, English and Arabic.

In his first book, Fikri Pohana (“Ideological Knowledge”), published in 2013, he dedicated an entire chapter to the AUAF – under the title of “De Kabul Masihi Pohantun” (“Kabul’s Christian University”). That chapter is full of misinformation, irrelevant comparisons and a distorted reading of history. He describes the AUAF as a “missionary” institution “inspired by Protestantism,” a “centre of US intelligence networks in Afghanistan” providing “a pool of advisors and consultants for the CIA.” He also accuses the university of intending to “produce secularists” who would “promote and rule by Western liberalism and oppose Islamic laws.”

(Those making these statements seem to have had little information about whom they are talking about and who later got caught up in the attack. For example, as profiled in a previous AAN dispatch, among the casualties of the AUAF was a devout religious student whom his classmates called imam since he was leading the prayers at the university mosque. A lecturer, who was killed, was a graduate of the prestigious madrasa, and a Hafiz (a person who had memorized the Holy Quran by heart). This lecturer was teaching an Islamic law class at the time of the attack.)

Scans from that chapter popped up on social media feeds of Taleban activists soon after the attack unfolded. The book was cited widely as a justification of the attack, as if the assault was directly inspired by it. Indeed, as one Taleb put it on his Facebook page: “Whoever conducted this attack has done a great job. They have put the words of our ideological guide, Ustad Abdul Hadi Mujahed, into practice.”

In addition to the themes produced by Mujahid regarding AUAF, specific justifications for attacking AUAF and killing its students also appeared in the Taleban’s social media in the wake of the attack. Two common themes were the following:

– AUAF was a university attended only by children of the political elite, ambassadors, MPs, ministers and commanders. No children of ordinary people can afford studying in AUAF.

This sounds very much similar to the justification a Pakistani Taleban commander who attacked an army school in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in December 2014 where most of those killed were teenage students. There is also an interesting similarity in thinking between this radical segment within the Afghan Taleban and elements of the Pakistani Taleban.

– AUAF promoted moral corruption with its co-education system and was a place for homosexual match-making.

This is a reference to an Afghan lecturer who was dismissed in late 2013 after publicly boasting about his gay sexual orientation.

In the Taleban movement, who decides what to attack?

Given the Taleban’s officially more tolerant position vis-à-vis educational institutions in recent years, (4) the attack on AUAF is hard to explain without taking into account some recent dynamics within the movement. It has, in principle, designated educational facilities as off-limits to attack. Its own rules of engagement have progressively emphasised that ban. During the initial years of the insurgency (2004-2008), Taleban fighters attacked schools more often in the absence of a strong proscription of doing so. Later, the group’s attitudes hugely evolved, as the leadership issued a layha (rulebook) for the fighter that was frequently updated (more in this AAN report). One of its aims was to reign in operations by local field commanders conducted outside of the chain of command – which included attacks on schools.

Just a week before the attack on AUAF, the Taleban released two statements spelling out its policy towards schools, and educational institutions generally, to once again reiterate its principle of an absolute ban of attacks on education. One statement said, “According to the principles of the Islamic Emirate, no mujahed has the permission to destroy a bridge or burn a school. . . . Our countrymen have to be aware that the Islamic Emirate mujahedin never intentionally harm any school or public property. The Emirate’s leadership has repeatedly brought the protection of these institutions to the attention of mujahedin.”

Another statement also talked about the Taleban’s commission for education and higher education which “supports and takes care of madrasas, high schools and higher education institutions.”

Against this background, how could the movement attack AUAF?

Against this background, the attack on AUAF can only be understood in the light of three other concurrent developments deep inside the Taleban movement. The first is a process that allows for the redefinition of attack targets – including taking particular ones out of a protected category and making them a legitimate target again. This is not limited to education, but also encompasses the media, humanitarian organisations and cultural activities. This would result in a policy where the Taleban, for example, would continue to tolerate universities in general, but not one like AUAF, with its US links.

Something similar happened in the media sector in October 2015 when the Taleban singled out two private TV channels – Tolo TV and 1TV – declaring them legitimate targets, after accusing them of operating as “propaganda outlets” in the service of the “infidel invaders” and as “hostile” to the movement. (In the same statement, the Taleban re-assured the rest of the media that it will continue to “cooperate” with them.) The Taleban delivered on that threat when its fighters attacked a shuttle bus carrying staff of a TV production firm that belonged to the media group that owns Tolo on 20 January 2016.

A second, related development has to do with the flow of ideas and how decisions are made within the movement. Even the most fringe elements can influence the movement’s attitude towards a specific issue through lobbying, if they are able to find influential supporters in the movement’s hierarchy. In the case of Tolo and 1TV, foot soldiers from Kunduz acted in tandem with a strand of the movement’s Pakistan-based young fanatics who had developed a strong antipathy against free media. They together persuaded the Taleban’s military commission to take out the two channels from the list of the (protected) media. The Pakistan-based fanatics were, mostly, the same people as had been engaged in a vicious propaganda campaign against AUAF.

The third development (not new, but relevant) is the existence of semi-autonomous networks under the umbrella of the Taleban movement with their own sources of funding and a particular chain of command. The Haqqani network is probably the largest and most powerful of these; another is the former Taleban military chief Qayum Zaker’s network in Helmand, which retains its semi-autonomy despite being partly dependent on resources from the Rahbari Shura (the Leadership Council). There are also smaller networks that serve as direct proxies of Pakistan (these are much more loyal to the Taleban than the Haqqanis are) but that enjoy the freedom to act freely within the insurgency sphere. These are thought to be responsible for a series of assassinations (or assassination attempts) against politicians, tribal elders (especially in the south), ulama and even Afghan Taleban members.

In other cases, powerful local commanders who contribute resources under their tight control to Taleban operations overall are able to keep operational (semi-) autonomy, as long as the money flow continues. Furthermore, where the Taleban rely on existing local networks to establish their presence in new areas, the local networks will tend to have a larger influence on the operations, if not full autonomy, until they are fully integrated into the movement. This has been almost always the case in areas outside the movement’s southern stronghold. A remarkable case in the initial years of the insurgency was Badakhshan, and recently Nangarhar and Kunar provinces.

For these networks, the official policy towards a certain issue does not always matter. They are bound only to the Taleban’s universal red lines – for example, that they cannot engage in sectarian attacks, beheadings and rapes – in order to keep their pledge of allegiance to the movement, and benefit from the name. There is a wide grey area in which these networks can operate in some divergence from official Taleban policies. For the time being, the Taleban leadership seems to heed those networks’ insistence on operational autonomy, in part as a reward for their important military contributions. This also provides the Taleban leadership deniability when it comes to particular ‘operations,’ for example, when the attacks by these networks cause remarkably high numbers of civilian casualties.

How does the AUAF fit into the Taleban’s hit list?

With the Taleban’s official – but not given – stance that universities are protected institutions and the possible influence of semi-autonomous networks and even possibly fringe groups, there are two scenarios regarding how the attack on AUAF might have occurred. In the first scenario, the attack was planned and carried out under the central chain of command after the institution was redefined as a ‘legitimate target’. AUAF, in this case, would be considered not an academic entity, but an institution that was part of a political agenda hostile to the Taleban. Similar disinformation has been used in the above-mentioned cases of attacks on hotels, restaurants, cultural centres and even hospitals.

The second scenario is that one of the semi-autonomous networks carried out the attack bypassing the central chain of command. The Haqqani network comes first in the list, given its proven capability of conducting sophisticated attacks in Kabul. In this case, too, AUAF would have been seen to occupy a grey targeting area, to allow the mainstream Taleban deniability. Indeed, the scenario that one of the most brutal networks in the Taleban movement carried out what their most extreme ideological strand lobbied for makes the most sense. In this case, an explanation of how the attack fits into the Taleban’s targeting pattern is not needed, since these networks are not fully bound by the policies of the mainstream.

Why silence?

The Taleban do not always claim attacks they carry out. Their official position toward attacks varies, ranging from proud claims of responsibility to silence, denial or even condemnation. The type of behaviour is determined by various factors, mainly how the attack will affect the Taleban’s image in the wider public, the Taleban support base and the broader political spectrum. For example, the assassination of Ustad Borhanuddin Rabbani in 2011 obviously resonated well with the Taleban’s support base, but claiming it publicly was too grave for its political image among the political forces of the former mujahedin. The Taleban’s response was silence – although it became clear that the perpetrator had come as an alleged Taleban peace contact. Other possible instances where the Taleban denied responsibility include the huge truck bomb that seems to have exploded prematurely in an August night in 2015 in Kabul, killing dozens, mainly civilians (see here and here). Denial and, more so, occasional condemnation are typical responses when the attack causes utterly unjustifiable damage or casualties, according to the Taleban’s standards, even when they are seen as ‘collateral’ rather than intended outcome.

Examples of Taleban condemnation of attacks carried out by their own fighters include two of the deadliest ones, in Paktika in 2014 and 2015. In July 2014 – and the holy month of Ramadan that year – a truck bomb went off in Urgun killing scores, almost all of them civilians, and turning a huge part of the town into a pile of rubble. Details provided to AAN then by local people left no doubt the attack was carried out by a well-known local Taleban commander, who actually wanted to target a notorious pro-government militia commander in the town, Azizullah Karwan. It was not clear, though, whether the bomb detonated prematurely or intentionally, given that many local Taleban foot soldiers considered the entire population of the town a legitimate target for its collective hostility toward the movement. Another attack targeted a group of people considered similarly hostile when a suicide bomber blew himself up among a crowd that included a number of ALP commanders watching or participating in a volleyball tournament in Yahyakhel district in November 2015. The Taleban officially condemned the attack in a statement and promised to hold those responsible to account, while a pro-Taleban website provided apologetic accounts and detailed justification for the attack.

The ideology behind the AUAF attack

The assault on AUAF, however, was the first time the Taleban widely cited specific texts to justify or celebrate an attack. As much as the attack indicates an increased ferocity in the Taleban’s tactics, it also brings to the fore the existence of a new layer of extremists within the movement. These new extremists are taking ideology much more seriously than the movement’s (or its leadership’s) political considerations, which include being flexible on rules so as not to upset the wider population. What makes the rise of the new strand a worrying phenomenon is not the mere obsession with ideology versus political considerations, but the essence of their ideology. Proponents of this ideology, such as Abdul Hadi Mujahed, have elaborately argued that the main enemy is not the West per se, but the ideas it promotes – meaning the “cultural invasion” which spans the fields of education, media, scholarships and humanitarian activities. Mujahed has called on the Taleban to pay more attention to this ‘invasion’ and to stop it. While Mujahed’s ideas might not be that attractive for senior Taleban, they have definitely struck a chord with the internet-savvy young generation. His book and its title have inspired several Facebook pages, which spread its contents. His fans have even made an Android application for his book, the only book on jihadism in local languages customised for smartphones.

Although not endorsed by the movement, according to various senior Taleban sources, articles by Mujahed have been published on the official Taleban website, al-emara, in 2014 and 2015. Taleban media representatives, however, told AAN at that time that they only did so out of personal respect for him, rather than because they agreed with what he wrote. One of his articles was also published in May 2014 in al-Qaeda’s InFight Magazine. Indeed, his ideas more resemble al-Qaeda’s thinking than that of the Taleban.

Rise of the new ultra-radicals?

The rise of strands in the Taleban movement with ideas more radical than its main line of thinking, their followers’ ability to influence decision-making by lobbying and the grey areas provided for semi-autonomous networks clearly illustrate the limits of centralisation of the movement. These limits also offset the success of the Taleban’s institutionalisation and decision-making mechanism based on a defined hierarchy in the form of more than a dozen quasi-ministerial bodies (see this AAN assessment). The ultra-radicals have played a decisive role in legitimising the attack on AUAF.

Both trends – increased centralisation and the radicalisation of certain elements – exist at the same time. While it is too early to say whether the rise of the radicals foreshadows a shift towards a broader extremism, there does seem a strong element of tension in the movement. Much depends on how dangerous the movement’s seniors, especially the new leader (who is more of a classical religious conservative), will perceive this development and what the new leader is willing and able to do about. For the time being he has managed to further consolidate the movement’s unity (even some leaders of dissident factions have returned to the mainstream organisation), and maintaining the current situation provides welcome deniability to ‘operations’ causing high numbers of civilian casualties.

An increase in the number and influence of those driven by more extremist ideas bodes ill for the protection of civilians and could make the insurgency even more lax when it comes to preventing civilian casualties. It sends worrying signals to the humanitarian community, as the movement (and its identification of ‘legitimate’ targets) becomes harder to predict. It could also further complicate an exit from the current wave of violence, a receding hope after the collapse of most initiatives to bring about peace negotiations.

Edited by Thomas Ruttig

 

(1) In this April 2016 report on children and armed conflict, the UN Secretary-General spoke of 132 verified incidents of attacks on schools and protected personnel in Afghanistan in 2015, 82 of which were attributed to the Taleban and 13 to Daesh-affiliated groups.

(2) The Voice of America and this AP report (but only in a photo caption, not the main text) spoke of a “Taliban attack” while the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle wrote that “suspicion is likely to fall on the Taliban.”

(3) Tim Foxley’s blog Afghan Hindsight has a collection of Taleban “complex” or “coordinated attacks,” here.

(4) In recent years, the Taleban have even cooperated with the Ministry of Education (unofficially, on the latter’s side) to keep schools in areas of their control open. This was often on the Taleban’s terms, as they had a say on which teachers were employed and on the curriculum. On this subject, also see AAN’s 2011 report “The Battle for the Schools: The Taleban and State education” and this 2012 dispatch, “The Battle for Schools in Ghazni.”

 

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By the time the attack on the American University in Afghanistan (AUAF) in Kabul on 24 August 2016 ended, 13 people had been killed and 49 wounded, most of them students. Families looking forward to bright futures for their children have been left to bury them or are now waiting anxiously at hospital bedsides. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. The AAN team has spoken to over a dozen people who survived the attack and put together an account of what happened during the attack and, in commemoration, gathered biographical details of the students and the lecturer killed.

In a second dispatch, AAN’s Borhan Osman looks into the insurgency’s internal dynamics – the rise of new ideologues and young ultra-radicals influenced by them and their influence on Taleban decision-making – for clues about the ‘who’ and the ‘why’ of the assault on AUAF.

The attack

When two or three militants (1) attacked the university on the evening of 24 August 2016, an estimated 700 students – out of a total of 1700 – and staff were on campus. It was the first week of the 2016 fall semester and, for some – students and lecturers – the first week of their academic career. The evening hours are the busiest at AUAF, as the university – a non-profit organisation financed out of the Afghan government’s budget but also with funds from USAID and the World Bank – offers a number of evening courses for students who are already professionals and who work during the day. Although the sons and daughters of Afghanistan’s elite study at the university, there are also many students there on scholarship. Between 7 and 8 pm is a peak hour at AUAF, and this is when the gunmen struck.

A vehicle packed with explosives was detonated outside the university’s gates, next to the Noor School for the Blind, Afghanistan’s only vocational high school for people with visual impairments. Some students reported hearing gunshots before the explosion, which, as it later turned out, were the shots that killed the guard at the school before the vehicle with the explosives was moved into position, blasting a hole into the AUAF compound wall. This then enabled the attackers to enter the campus. Apart from the wall, there was limited structural damage to the AUAF from the initial explosion.

A container near the wall facing the Noor School took the brunt of the explosion, which seems to have protected what is known as the Faculty Building inside the university compound, which houses lecturers’ offices. Shortly after the explosion, the electricity supply to the campus was cut off, plunging it into darkness, with the exception of a few emergency lights. This also took out all surveillance cameras, as well as the internet connection.

Within five minutes of the initial explosion, as students tried to flee, two attackers entered one of university’s main buildings, the Saleha Bayat Building, where classes were taking place. The Bayat Building – named after one of the university’s Afghan private sector sponsors (2) – is a two-winged, three-story structure, divided by a central entrance and staircase, containing offices and classrooms. The administrative offices on the first floor deal with registration, IT, students and financial affairs. There is also a student common room. The second floor is mostly made up of classrooms. The third floor houses more classrooms as well as administrative offices.

Map of AUAF Campus indicating the location of the various buildings (Source: Google Maps with labels added by AAN)

The attackers seem to have gone to the top floor first. There, according to AUAF students, Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak, a young Afghan lecturer, was killed (see more in the bios further down in this text). While the building had several exit routes and escape ladders outside windows, students remained inside in the confusion and panic. As the attackers apparently moved from room to room and floor to floor, many did not want to risk escaping and barricaded themselves in various classrooms on the second and third floors of the Bayat building.

One attacker appears to have moved relatively quickly to the smaller Azizi building, a one-story structure used both for classes and for the administrative staff of the Professional Development Institution (PDI), an AUAF branch that offers English language and other professional courses. One of this building’s two gates was blocked, according to a survivor’s report. While a group of at least three students and a guard attempted to head towards the second gate, they ran into the attacker, who opened fire on them. At least one student in the group died, while another, in spite of critical injuries, managed to escape. (3)

Most of the students who had been in the library and the so-called C Building – another building with many classrooms – were able to escape through emergency gates leading to an adjacent UN compound. They reported that the layout of the university was well designed and helped them escape, as did the security training they had received, provided by the university.

The students trapped in the Bayat Building heard grenade explosions and sporadic gunfire during the ten hours it took the various security forces – including the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF) guarding the university, an armed security team hired by the AUAF and the Ministry of Interior’s Crisis Response Unit (also known as 222s) supported by the Norwegian and US special forces – to search the campus and to locate and kill the attackers. According to some reports, they were wearing ANSF uniforms. (4)

At various points during the night, fighting stopped as injured security forces were evacuated. Remaining staff and students were only evacuated from the Bayat Building in the early hours of 25 August. Then the search mission began for the injured who were unable to get themselves out, and for the dead. At around 8 am, the bodies of many of those who had been killed were found. Within hours, the first reports in the media appeared with their names. Security forces handed the campus back to the AUAF’s administrative staff on the same day. The clean up began immediately and students were notified that the undergraduate program would restart around 20 September 2016. Other programs, such as the MBA programme and the university’s administrative offices, have continued to function in less affected parts of the main AUAF campus, as well as the international campus located across the street.

The victims of the attack

Even a week after the attack, the exact number of casualties remains unclear – reported figures continue to vary, in particular regarding the number of affected civilians. On 1 September 2016, UNAMA, in correspondence to AAN, confirmed 61 civilian casualties:

– 13 deaths: six male and two female students, two professors, two university security guards and one from the Noor School for the Blind;

– 48 injured: 43 students and two professors, a Ugandan national and another foreign citizen, and three university security guards.

Apart from civilians, three members of the ANSF were killed; including Lieutenant Muhammed Akbar Andarabi, who was in charge of the Afghan National Police’s special forces, the so-called Crisis Response Unit, that conducted the operation in the university. He was shot by one of the attackers hiding in the building. Ten members of the security forces were injured: nine members of the Ministry of Interior’s CRU and one member of the National Directorate of Security. UNAMA reported that three assailants, referring to them as “suicide attackers“ were also killed.

A statement released by the Ministry of Interior to the media on 25 August 2016 said that 12 people had died in the AUAF attack (seven students, three policemen, one AUAF guard and one guard from the School for the Blind). The statement also cites 45 wounded individuals (36 students and AUAF staff, and nine policemen). In an editorial published on 27 August 2016, Ministry of Public Health officials are quoted as “confirming on Thursday afternoon [25 August 2016] that among those killed were eight students, including two females, three Crisis Response Unit (CRU) members, two security guards, two university professors and one civilian from the adjoining school where the initial car bomb was detonated.”

AUAF has yet to release the names of the casualties, as the verification process is still ongoing. Based on the accounts of various sources, AAN, at the time of writing, has been able to confirm 12 deaths: five male and two female students, one Afghan professor (find their biographical details below), as well as three university security guards and one guard from the School for the Blind. The exact figure of civilians injured in the attack has been difficult to determine, as some individuals who were treated and discharged with minor injuries have not been reported by hospitals. Furthermore, the large number of different medical facilities where the injured were treated has also made it difficult to collect and verify a total count for all those injured in the attack.

On 31 August 2016, the program coordinator at the Emergency Hospital in Kabul, which appears to have received the majority of those injured, told AAN that the facility had received 24 wounded adults, of which 19 were admitted: five female and 14 male patients. Three of these patients were in serious condition; one has since died at the hospital. The other two patients are still undergoing treatment.

Killed AUAF students and faculty staff

(In alphabetical order)

Alina Jamal (registered at AUAF under the name Alnaz, but called Alina by friends and family), 18, was the oldest child of a street-vendor and a scholarship student studying for a BA in Political Science and Public Administration. Alina had spent most of her life in Karachi, Pakistan, as a refugee. Her dream, as a relative told AAN, had been to study in a prestigious university such as the AUAF and then to get a job to help support her family. When the attackers broke into the campus, Alina had been in an English class. She called her mother, telling her they were being attacked. When the insurgents got into her building and reached the floor below her, she jumped out of the window in a bid to escape. It is believed she was shot while she was on the ground. Alina’s father was in Pakistan at the time of the attack, her relative said; he had gone to pick up her high school transcripts. Her mother was at home, “fainting with grief.”

Abdul Walid Karimzada, 26, was from Kabul from Serahi Alawudi, not far from AUAF. After graduating from Ghazi High School, located close to Dehmazang Square, and obtaining a dental degree from Guetta Institute, he began a business administration course at the AUAF. Walid was the Director of the NGO Afghanistan Libre, a position he had held since 2010. The NGO focuses on education. According to a tribute on the ACBAR website, “Walid had been working for Afghanistan Libre for more than 10 years. He had met the founder, Mrs. Shekeba Hashemi as a young adult and committed to the NGO since then… He chose to commit entirely to Education, let it be women education, young girls’ or his own.” Before joining Afghanistan Libre, he was the designer and manager of the publication Mujaleh Roze (Day Magazine).

Jamila Ismailzada, in her mid-twenties, was in her final year of studying business administration.  Originally from in Mazar-e Sharif, she moved to Pakistan during the Taleban regime. She completed her primary education in Pakistan and upon returning to Afghanistan attended Rokhshana High School in Kabul from which she graduated in 2009. Having already completed a degree in computer science at Kabul University, she had joined AUAF to study management. According to information she had provided on a webpage in 2013, Jamila wanted to help women to set up small businesses to improve their lives and have a positive effect on economy of the country.

Jamshed Zafar, 23, was in the final semester of his last year at the university, studying law. Originally from Ishkashim in Badakhshan province, he grew up in Kabul. Before enrolling at AUAF he had attended high school in the United States through the YES Program (the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study program). He was the nephew of Barry Salam, a well-known journalist and civil society activist. A relative told AAN that Jamshed was also an activist and a member of the advisory board of a newly established national civil society organization called Roshna (Dari for Brightness). According to his classmate Safia Jamal, Jamshed “wanted to be a good politician and help the people of our country.” He worked as the marketing manager of Seven TV channel, Sobh Bakhair Afghanistan Radio program and Awanama Production (a group of media production companies owned by his uncle).

Mujtaba Aksir, 22, was a third year student of Business Administration. Originally from Panjsher, he had spent his childhood in Pakistan and later attended Naderia High School in Kabul. He lost his mother in childhood and an elder brother had drowned in the Panjsher River two years ago. He was the son of a well-known doctor and professor at the Medical University of Kabul, Nader Aksir. A friend told AAN that Mujtaba was a calm person, friendly and hard working. His ambition had been to become a pilot.

Last year, AAN was told that Mujtaba raised 4,000 US dollars for the victims of the avalanches that had struck his home province. On another occasion, his university friends had launched a campaign to collect clothes as an Eid gift (Eidi) for street children, and he suggested they should give them books as well. The campaign to collect books was halted after the attack on the protestors of Jombesh-e Roshnayi, during which Aksir and his friends lost many friends. “We will continue Aksir’s way,” said one friend, “and provide street children with books.”

Samiullah Sarwari, 18, had just begun his studies. He was in his first week at AUAF. “I’m in,” he wrote on his Facebook page, the two days before the attack (22 August 2016). “Looking forward to a beautiful and bright future.”

From a poor family, Sami had attended Afghanistan’s only music institute, Afghanistan National Institute of Music (ANIM), but, according to The New York Times, had given up music after the 2014 attack on the French Cultural Centre in Kabul. “His family is so poor, and his mother tried to support her children to achieve their goals.” Sami had won a scholarship to study at the AUAF, but he and his family had expected him to work while he studied. ANIM director, Ahmad Sarmast, told the Times, he had wanted to support them and “be with them like a mountain.” Sarmast wrote on his facebook page that Sami represented Afghan Music as a cultural ambassador in various cultural festivals outside of Afghanistan. 

Zubair Zakir, 28, from Kabul, was studying for a Political Science and Public Administration degree, and was attending a class on State Building and Political Development in Afghanistan when the attack began. Zubair was working at the Etisalat communications company during the day to support his family and going to class at night, a friend told AAN. With an untrimmed beard, a trimmed moustache and white prayer cap, Zubair looked and was a deeply religious student. He frequently led students as imam in communal prayers at the university and was described by friends as humble, well respected and well liked. His grief-stricken father, Abdul Zahir, said in an interview with Tolo News that the insurgents were nothing but criminals and must be brought to justice.

Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak, 32, from Behsud district in Nangarhar province, was the only lecturer among those killed. He was teaching an Introduction to Islamic law class on the third floor of the Bayat Building when the attack happened. He had also been teaching other law classes at the AUAF. A graduate from Nangarhar University and holder of a Master’s degree from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, Khpulwak was also a visiting scholar at Stanford University Law School in California and had just gained a place at Oxford University in England to study for a PhD.

During the day, he had been working as the programme manager of the rule of law portfolio at the United States Institute for Peace (USIP) in Kabul. He also worked on rule of law projects with the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, the Ministry of Justice, the Afghan Parliament and the Afghan Independent Bar Association. He had also been working with Afghan communities on consultations regarding a proposed conciliation law, linking informal and formal justice mechanisms.

One of his friends told AAN that when they heard about the attack, “We called Khpulwak a few times, with no answer… Eventually, his phone was off.” She and another friend went to the Emergency Hospital to look, fruitlessly, for Khpulwak, and then spoke to AUAF who assured them he must be in the safe room. The following morning, he said, “We found out he was on his way to the safe room when he was shot… What bothers me most is that his body was not found until this morning and it was in front of the safe room.” Some sources also stated that he died alongside some of his students.

There has been much praise for Khpulwak. “It’s a devastating loss,” USIP’s vice-president, Andrew Wilder, told AAN. “He really was a remarkable individual – someone who really lit up the room when he entered with his infectious smile and enthusiasm.” USIP wrote on its website in memoriam of him:

He was a leader in the Afghan legal community, and deeply dedicated to his students at the American University of Afghanistan. A voracious reader and lover of knowledge… a passionate builder of peace in Afghanistan. He thought tirelessly about how to rebuild his country after decades of war, and never ceased in his efforts to heal the many wounds that war has inflicted.

Erik G Jansen of Stanford University said Khpulwak’s former colleagues there were heartbroken. “He believed strongly in the power of education, and the need for legal education in Afghanistan. He was always emphatic that we — Afghans who care about the future of the country — cannot back down to insurgents and criminals who threaten a future of possibility.”

One of Khpulwak’s friend, describing how he used to collect books for his old university in Jalalabad, said that everything he did in life, “was with a peaceful, better Afghanistan in mind. He was a brilliant man, one of the smartest people I have met in my life.” Another friend and fellow Fulbright Scholar, Sediq Amin, told AAN: “I have lost a friend, and Afghanistan lost one of her true sons… He was… a man with a pure heart, sharp mind and a very clear vision for the future of Afghanistan.”

Khpulwak loved reading, cricket and spending time with his family.

Here is more biographical background on him, as given by AUAF and by his LinkedIn profile:

Since 2013, Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak has been an Assistant Professor of Law at AUAF teaching courses on Introduction to Afghan Law, Introduction to Islamic Law, Public International Law, Family Law, Property Law, and Traditional Justice & Dispute Resolution; he was also the faculty advisor for a law students association. Naqib has previously worked as Legal Counsellor and Team Leader for NRC Afghanistan. Naqib has also worked as a volunteer lecturer for Nangarhar Law and Political Science Faculty. His other works include: Senior Political Analyst for WSC- Kabul, intern/consultant at Afghan Embassy in Washington DC-US, and Afghanistan Desk Assistant for Civil Military Fusion Center, NATO- Norfolk, VA. Sponsored by PJRA-LLM Scholarship Program, Naqib studied at Stanford Law School and worked as Visiting Student Research Scholar for the Afghanistan Legal Education Program at SLS. A Fulbright Scholar, Naqib received an M.A. in Comparative Politics, and Security Studies from Old Dominion University (GPIS). Naqib has a Bachelor of Law & Political Science from Nangarhar University, where he graduated first in his class.

 

 

 

(1) The number of the attackers is unclear to date. Available information indicates there may have been two or three, depending on whether one of them blew himself up in the car bomb used to breach the university’s compound wall or whether he had time to park the car and participate in the assault. Our information seems to suggest the second version, as the guard of the neighbouring Noor School was been shot dead which would have allowed the driver to leave the bomb-rigged car. See more detail in the text above.

UNAMA speaks of a “suicide vehicle-borne improvised explosive device“ – this would indicate a third assailant who could have blown himself up in the car. The two assailants who shot at students and staff apparently did not blow themselves up, but were killed by security forces. (They may have been called “suicide attackers” as they probably knew they would not leave the AUAF compound alive.)

(2) See the list of AUAF’s main sponsors on the university’s website here.

(3) See also survivors’ accounts in the following news reports: The Guardian, Associated Press, Radio Liberty, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times.

(4) There was also one report quoting an eye-witness talking about attackers being “in normal clothes.”

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