National Guard shooting suspect worked with CIA in Afghanistan before coming to US

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan man accused of shooting two National Guard members on Wednesday, worked with the CIA in Afghanistan before coming to the United States four years ago, officials said.

The suspect is accused of shooting two West Virginia Army members – 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe – not far from the White House.

Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, said Thursday, “We’re praying they survive, and the highest charge will not be murder in the first degree.”

Mr Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under a program that offered special immigration protections to Afghans in the wake of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

At a press conference on Thursday, Pirro and FBI Director Kash Patel spoke about Mr. Lakanwal’s ties to US forces.

Patel said there is confirmation that the suspect had ties to partner forces in Afghanistan before traveling to the United States.

Mr Lakanwal helped US forces secure Kabul airport as thousands of people were trying to flee Afghanistan before the Taliban took power, a former military commander who worked with him told the BBC’s Afghan service.

The father of five was recruited into Unit 03 of the Kandahar Strike Force nine years ago.

His unit was known locally as the Scorpion Forces, initially working under the CIA but eventually for the Afghan intelligence department known as the Directorate of National Security.

The former commander told the BBC that Mr Lakanwal was a GPS tracker expert and described him as a “sporty and jolly character”.

His entire unit was moved from Kandahar to Kabul five days before the Taliban entered the capital. They remained guarding the airport for the next six days, before they too were flown to the US.

In view of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Biden administration – with bipartisan support – created a program called Operation Ally’s Welcome, which allowed approximately 77,000 Afghans to enter the US under special immigration protections.

This program lasted for about a year after America’s withdrawal.

Mr Lakanwal, 29, was among those who entered the US through the programme, and was granted parole to the US on humanitarian grounds in 2021, the BBC’s US news partner reported.

That mechanism was the main one used by the Biden administration to bring Afghans to the US.

Mr Lakanwal later applied for asylum in 2024, CBS reports. His application was approved earlier this year.

A Homeland Security official told CBS that Mr. Lakanwal’s green card request, which is tied to asylum grants, is pending.

“The Biden Administration was justified in bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 because of his prior work with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly after 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. Lacanwal drove his car across the country from where he was living in Bellingham, Washington, to carry out the attack.

Officials are now reviewing his immigration history and how he was vetted before coming to the United States, he said.

On Wednesday afternoon, Mr. Lacanwal reportedly shot National Guard members at close range near Farragut Square in downtown Washington in what was described as an ambush-style attack.

Other National Guard members at the scene shot Mr. Lakanwal and took him into custody. The suspect, who is in police custody, faces more than a decade behind bars if he is found guilty of three counts of assault while armed and intent to murder and one count of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.

He remains in hospital receiving treatment for his injuries.

Ms. Beckstrom and Mr. Wolfe remain in critical condition after both were shot multiple times, authorities said.

In the wake of the shootings, which Donald Trump labeled a “terrorist act,” the president said he would take steps to deport any alien “from any country that doesn’t belong here.”

On Wednesday, the US suspended all immigration requests from Afghans.

Trump said the US “must now double-check every single alien entering our country from Afghanistan under Biden”.

On Thursday, Joseph Edlow, the head of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, said the President had directed him to conduct a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern.”

His social media post said, “The safety of this country and the American people is paramount, and the American people will not bear the price of the former administration’s reckless resettlement policies.”

In addition to reviewing immigration efforts, Trump said he would send another 500 National Guard members to patrol the streets of Washington.

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 “out of control” crime.

National Guard troops are a reserve force that can be activated to serve as military soldiers, but their power is limited because they cannot enforce laws or make arrests.

Hafizullah Maroof and Syed Abdullah Nizami of the BBC Afghan Service contributed to this report