BAGHDAD — Militants stormed a university in Iraq’s restive Anbar province Saturday, briefly taking dozens of students hostage before withdrawing from the school amid gunfire, officials and witnesses said.



The attack on Anbar University comes as extremists and other anti-government militias have held parts of the nearby provincial capital of Ramadi and the city of Falluja since December amid rising tensions between Sunni Muslims and the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.



While shelling and gunbattles continue between the militants and government-allied forces, the school largely has been left alone while civilians fled the violence.



That changed early Saturday morning as the gunmen killed three police officers on guard at the university’s gate, a police and a military official said.



The gunmen then detained dozens of students inside a university dorm, the officials said.



Ahmed Al-Mehamdi, a student who was taken hostage, said he awoke to the crackle of gunfire, looked out the window and saw armed men dressed in black racing across the campus. Minutes later, the gunmen entered the dormitory and ordered everybody to stay in their rooms while taking others away, he said.



The Shiite students at the school were terrified, Al-Mehamdi said, as the gunmen identified themselves as belonging to an Al-Qaeda splinter group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.



The group, fighting in Syria with other rebels trying to topple President Bashar Al-Assad, is known for massive, bloody attacks in Iraq as well often targeting Shiites that they view as heretics. — AP