TWELVE people, including seven students, were killed in an attack on the American University in Kabul that sent hundreds of students fleeing in panic, police said Thursday, before the assault ended when two gunmen were shot dead.

    The attack began at around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday with a large explosion that officials said was a car bomb followed by gunfire, as suspected militants battled into the complex where foreign staff and pupils were working.

    Elite Afghan forces surrounded the walled compound and eventually worked their way inside, according to a senior interior ministry official.

    Sporadic gunfire could be heard through the night and, before dawn, police said the operation had concluded after they killed at least two attackers.

    There was no claim of responsibility for an attack in which Kabul police chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said seven students, three policemen and two security guards were killed, the second incident involving the university this month.

    President Ashraf Ghani called the assault “a cowardly attempt to hinder progress and development in Afghanistan.”

    “Attacking educational institutions and public places and targeting civilians will not only fail to shake our determination, but will further strengthen it to fight and eradicate terror,” he said in a statement.

    Islamist militant groups, mainly the Afghan Taliban and a local offshoot of Islamic State, have claimed a string of recent bomb attacks aimed at destabilizing Afghanistan and toppling the Western-backed government of Ghani. One Ugandan man — a faculty member — was among the wounded, according to a list at the Kabul emergency hospital. (SD-Agencies)