Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard members on Wednesday, worked alongside the CIA in Afghanistan before coming to the US four years ago, officials have said.
The suspect is accused of shooting two West Virginia troop members – Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24 – blocks from the White House.
“We are praying they survive, and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree,” US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on Thursday.
Mr Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under a programme that offered special immigration protections to Afghans in the wake of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
At a press conference on Thursday, Pirro and FBI Director Kash Patel explained Mr Lakanwal’s connection to US forces.
There is confirmation, Patel said, that the suspect “had a relationship in Afghanistan with partner forces”, before moving to the US.
Mr Lakanwal helped guard US forces at Kabul airport as thousands scrambled to escape Afghanistan before the Taliban took power, a former military commander who served alongside him told the BBC’s Afghan Service.
The father of five had been recruited to Unit 03 of the Kandahar Strike Force, nine years earlier.
His unit was known locally as Scorpion Forces, operating initially under the CIA but eventually for the Afghan intelligence department known as the National Directorate of Security.
Mr Lakanwal was a GPS tracker specialist, the former commander told the BBC, describing him as a “sporty and jolly character”.
His whole unit was moved from Kandahar to Kabul five days before the Taliban entered the capital. They continued to protect the airport for another six days, before they too were airlifted out to the US.
In the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration – with bipartisan support – created a programme called Operation Allies Welcome that allowed around 77,000 Afghans to enter the US under special immigration protections.
The programme was in place for about a year following the US withdrawal.
Mr Lakanwal, 29, was among those who entered the US through this programme and applied for asylum in 2024. His application was granted earlier this year, CBS, the BBC’s US news partner reported.
“The Biden Administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement to CBS.
The shooting of National Guard members was “targeted”, Pirro said, noting that Mr Lakanwal drove his car across the country from where he was living in Bellingham, Washington, to Washington DC to carry out this attack.
Officials are now reviewing his immigration history and how he was vetted before he came to the US, she added.
On Wednesday afternoon, Mr Lakanwal allegedly shot the National Guard members at close range near Farragut Square in downtown Washington in what is being described as an ambush style attack.
Other National Guard members on the scene then shot Mr Lakanwal and detained him. The suspect, who is in police custody, faces more than a decade behind bars if he is found guilty of three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and one count of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
He remains in hospital while being treated for his injuries.
Ms Beckstrom and Mr Wolfe remain in critical condition, officials said, after they each were shot multiple times.
In the wake of the shooting, which Donald Trump labelled an “act of terror”, the president said that he would take steps to remove any foreigner “from any country who does not belong here”.
On Wednesday, the US suspended all immigration requests from Afghans.
Trump said that the US “must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden”.
In addition to reviewing immigration efforts, Trump said he would send another 500 National Guard members to patrol the streets of Washington.
Already more than 2,000 troops have been guarding the nation’s capital since August, when the president began deploying troops to Democratic-led cities to tackle what he called “out of control” crime.
National Guard troops are a reservist force that can be activated to serve as military troops, but have limited power as they cannot enforce the law or make arrests.
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