Man Killed In Afghanistan Attacks Mourned By Former Colleagues In Santa Clara, Monterey Counties

BAY AREA, CA – A man killed in a terrorist attack in Afghanistan on Wednesday spent part of his higher education career at schools in Santa Clara and Monterey counties, where his former colleagues are mourning his death.

Naqib Ahmad Khpulwak was one of 16 people killed Wednesday in the attack at American University in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was an assistant law professor.

Khpulwak was a visiting scholar at Stanford Law School for six months in 2013 and a Fulbright scholar, according to Stanford University officials.

Khpulwak worked as a full-time instructor at American University until 2015 when he switched to an adjunct status and took a job as a manager on rule of law programs at the United States Institute of Peace in Kabul,
Stanford officials said.

The law school receives help from the U.S. Department of State in its work with the American University's law program, according to Stanford officials.

"Our sympathies and best wishes go out to all of those affected by this terrible act, and to all those who had worked closely with Naqib. It is a heartbreaking loss," Stanford officials said in a statement Thursday.

"Naqib 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," Stanford Law Professor Erik Jensen said in
a statement.

"His death is an enormous loss to AUAF and to Afghanistan. My thoughts are with his family," said Jensen, an AUAF board member.

From 2010 to 2012, Khpulwak went to the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey where he took courses in the Intensive English Program and English Preparation under the Graduate Studies division, institute officials said.

Khpulwak led classes in property rights, family law and co-taught a course on alternative confliction resolution and law at American University, according to the institute.

Khpulwak was planning to attend the University of Oxford in England for a master's degree in international human rights law before he died, institute officials said.

"This is a tragic loss, for Naqib's family, for his country, and for his teachers and fellow alumni of the Middlebury Institute," said Jeff Dayton-Johnson, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the
institute.

"Naqib was one of the first Afghan Fulbrighters who came to MIIS, with the intention of taking his professional skills back to Afghanistan in order to make a positive impact on his country's future," said Patricia Szasz, the institute's assistant dean for language and professional programs.

"It was a tremendous privilege to be a part of his educational journey, and we, as his teachers, learned much about the triumphs and challenges of Afghanistan from having known him," Szasz said.

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--Bay City News/Image via Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey