Afghan government vows revenge for ISIS attack on Kabul University

KABUL -- Stunned students demonstrated outside Kabul University on Tuesday (November 3), a day after at least 22 people were killed in a brutal on-campus attack claimed by the "Islamic State of Iraq and Syria" (ISIS).

The small gathering of demonstrators held banners stating, "Stop Killing Us," as Afghanistan observed a national day of mourning and the first funerals were expected.

The Monday (November 2) assault at the university saw three terrorists -- one of whom blew himself up -- rampage through the campus, shooting students in their classrooms.

ISIS claimed a similar attack on Kawsar-e-Danish education centre in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighbourhood of western Kabul that occurred October 24. That suicide bombing killed 24 people and injured more than 50, most of them young students.

It was not immediately clear how the terrorists got their weapons into the university, which has security checks.

An investigation is under way, said officials.

It took Afghan security forces several hours to clear the campus and declare the terrorist act over.

We "will correct our intelligence failures", First Vice President Amrullah Saleh said on Twitter.

President Ashraf Ghani in a statement vowed to "take revenge for this senseless attack and for any drop of innocent students' blood spilled today".

He added that the slayings at the university "will not remain without response; we will retaliate".

At the United Nations, Secretary-General António Guterres said he "strongly condemns the horrific attack" at the university.

"This appalling attack, the second in 10 days on a school facility in Kabul, is also an assault on the human right to education," he said in a statement.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the massacre, which it called a "despicable" assault on a seat of learning.

Zalmay Khalilzad, the US special envoy who helped bring the Taliban and Afghan government together for peace talks, urged the two sides to accelerate a political settlement.

"This barbaric attack is NOT an opportunity for the government and the Taliban to score points against each other," he tweeted. "There is a common enemy here."

"Deny ISIS or any other terrorist the space to carry out these inhumane acts," he said.

Meanwhile, local officials in Nangarhar Province Sunday (November 1) said that National Directorate of Security (NDS) forces arrested three members of ISIS, including the group's press and financial officials in the province, in a special operation in Jalalabad, the provincial capital.

The statement released by the governor's office did not provide details on when the operation took place.