John Bacon

USA TODAY

Afghan special forces backed by U.S. military advisers were sweeping a college campus in Kabul on Wednesday after a militant attack rocked the American University of Afghanistan, authorities said.

At least seven people, including a university security guard, died and more than 30 were wounded in the hour-long attack of explosions and gunfire, the Associated Press and FOX News reported. Emergency Hospital in Kabul said it treated 19 wounded teachers and students.

About 700 students have been rescued, Kabul police Chief Abdul Rahman Rahimi said.

Special forces teams were combing the school evacuating terrified students. Few details on the attackers were immediately available.

The assault began when one or two gunmen, possibly wearing suicide vests, stormed the Kabul campus at about 7 p.m. local time, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi told Reuters. Scores of students and foreign professors barricaded themselves in classrooms amid gunfire and explosions, witnesses said.

"Many students jumped from the second floor, some broke their legs and some hurt their head trying to escape," Abdullah Fahimi, a student who escaped, told Reuters. He said he injured his ankle making the leap.

CBS journalist Ahmad Mukhtar tweeted that he and some friends escaped the attack, but several other friends and professors were trapped. Associated Press photographer Massoud Hossaini said he was in class with 15 students when he heard an explosion.

“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,” Hossaini said. He said he fell on glass, cutting his hand. Some students then barricaded themselves into the classroom, the target of at least two grenades, he said.

Hossaini said he and about nine students finally fled through an emergency gate.

“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.

Pentagon spokesman Adam Stump told USA TODAY that "a small number of Resolute Support advisers" were assisting at the scene in a non-combat role. Resolute Support is the NATO-led mission that trains and supports Afghan forces.

U.S. servicemember killed in Afghan fighting, Pentagon says

The school was the scene of an apparent terror attack Aug. 7, when two faculty members were abducted at gunpoint by unidentified gunman. The school was shut down and a review of its security was conducted. The school resumed its normal operations a few days later. The teachers, an American and an Australian, are still missing.

The university, with 1,700 students on a five-acre campus, is an internationally supported, private university founded a decade ago in Kabul.

"AUAF is dedicated to providing a world-class higher education that prepares students from Afghanistan and the region to be tomorrow’s leaders," the school says on its website. "The university promotes an atmosphere of tolerance, hard work, intellectual rigor, and freedom of expression."

All programs are taught in English. All faculty have academic backgrounds from accredited schools in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Australia, the school's website says.