Members of law enforcement, including the US Secret Service and the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, at the scene of the shooting near the White House. Photo / Getty Images
A man who shot two National Guards in Washington DC was a special forces commander in the Afghan army who worked alongside US troops.
The two soldiers are in a critical condition after being shot at point-blank range in a targeted attack just yards from the White House this week. One was reportedly shot in the head.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, was wounded in an exchange of gunfire before he was arrested.
It has emerged Lakanwal was evacuated from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in 2021.
His ID card identifies him as a commander in Unit 01, an elite force within the former Afghan government’s National Directorate of Security (NDS).
This was one of four strike units that operated with CIA support for the US-backed government in Kabul.
He worked closely with US and Nato forces in Kandahar but lived in Khost, near the Pakistan border.
Kash Patel, the FBI director, confirmed the suspect worked with American partner forces in the region.
When Kabul fell to the Taliban, he was evacuated to the United States through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era programme, arriving in Washington state on September 8, 2021.
Lakanwal was initially sponsored by a local faith organisation and worked low-paid jobs as his immigration case worked its way through the system.
His two-year parole expired in mid-2024, leaving him undocumented and he applied for asylum that December, claiming he feared Taliban reprisals.
After vetting, the Trump administration granted him asylum and a work permit in April this year.
He had no criminal record, though neighbours said he became increasingly withdrawn, and his deleted social media posts reportedly showed anti-Western views, although this has not been confirmed.
Investigators are now reviewing whether he had any extremist contacts, with the motive still not clear.
US authorities said Lakanwal allegedly drove cross-country from Washington state to Washington, DC to carry out the attack.
Patel said an address associated with the suspect had been searched and interviews with those who lived there remained ongoing.
The West Virginia National Guardsmen injured in the attack have been named as Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24.
The two soldiers had been sworn into service less than 24 hours before the shooting, Jeanine Pirro, the District of Columbia district attorney, said.
Musselman High School in West Virginia posted their well wishes to their former student on Facebook as he remains in a critical condition in hospital.
Photos of Wolfe show him smiling with friends playing cornhole – a game which involves throwing a bag of corn at a target.
“As we head into Thanksgiving, please keep our friend in your prayers. He was shot today while serving our country, and our hearts are with him and his family,” the Beltway Baggers, which runs cornhole tournaments in Virginia, wrote on Facebook.
Pirro said the soldiers’ families were “shattered and destroyed and torn apart”.
Donald Trump condemned the ambush-style shooting as an “act of evil, hatred and terror”.
Addressing the nation after the attack, the US President called it a “heinous assault”.
“It was a crime against our entire nation, it was a crime against humanity,” he said.
A former Unit 01 commander speaking from Kabul said he was shocked by the news.
“He worked day and night with the Americans in Kandahar and had no reason to harm them,” he said.
“They took him to America because they believed his life was in danger with the Taliban in power.”
The units were special forces components of the NDS, operating with a high degree of operational autonomy.
They maintained direct communication channels with CIA advisers and conducted operations independently of traditional Afghan military command structures.
The units were accused of killing civilians and conducting unauthorised operations in remote Afghan villages mainly in Kandahar and Helmand. They deny doing so.
Operation Allies Welcome was a Biden administration programme, launched in August 2021 to protect vulnerable Afghans after the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Most of the 190,000 Afghans who arrived under the programme were allowed to enter and remain in the US for two years.
More than 40% of the migrants admitted in the programme were eligible for Special Immigrant Visas because they took great risks to help the US, or were related to someone who did, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
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