A 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked with the United States in Kandahar drove across the country from Washington state to the nation’s capital and shot two National Guard members in an ambush Wednesday afternoon near the White House, federal authorities said Thursday morning.
The shooting has sparked an intense, worldwide investigation into the attack and the alleged shooter’s motive as the two Guard members — Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24 — remain in critical condition after undergoing surgery.
Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said at a Thursday morning news conference that Rahmanullah Lakanwal lived in Bellingham, Washington, and came to D.C. to commit what officials called a “targeted attack.”
The victims were members of the West Virginia National Guard and had been in the nation’s capital since August, when President Donald Trump deployed troops for what he called a “crime emergency” in the city. Wolfe, a staff sergeant from Martinsburg, began his service with the West Virginia Air National Guard in 2019, officials said. Beckstrom, a specialist from Summersville, began serving with the West Virginia Army National Guard in 2023.
Around 2:15 p.m. on Wednesday, the troops were patrolling along a busy corridor near the White House complex just outside the Farragut West Metro stop in downtown Washington.
The “gunman opened fire without provocation, ambush-style, armed with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver,” and shot one Guard member, Pirro said. That person fell to the ground, she said, and then Lakanwal leaned over and “strikes the Guardsman again.” Another Guard member, she said, was also “struck several times.”
Additional Guard members who responded to the attack then shot Lakanwal before he was subdued at the scene. The alleged gunman was transported to a local hospital, where Pirro said he “remains under heavy guard.”
FBI Director Kash Patel described the case as a “heinous act of terrorism,” but provided no additional details or information about what has led law enforcement to describe the attack that way. Pirro said it was too soon to provide a motive for the shooting, but that “there are definitely areas that we’re looking into.” The suspect, she said, will be charged with three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence.
“We are praying that they survive and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree,” Pirro said. “But make no mistake, if they do not, that will certainly be the charge — murder in the first degree.”
Patel said the investigation is sprawling and involves people from multiple agencies working nonstop, including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and D.C. police. The firearm used in the attack was sent to the FBI’s Quantico lab, Patel said, for “immediate analysis.” Patel said multiple search warrants have been executed around the country, including of the suspect’s home in Bellingham, where he lived with his wife and possibly his five children.
“We will not stop until we interview anyone and everyone associated with the subject, the house and every piece of his life,” Patel said. He said he had also spoken to CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Wednesday night and had confirmation that the suspect had a “relationship with Afghanistan with partner forces.”
Patel said that “we are fully investigating that aspect of his background as well, to include any known associates that are either overseas or here” in the United States.
The suspect previously worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar that ended in 2021 following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, according to a CIA spokesman.
The deployment of the National Guard members in the capital has caused consternation among local D.C. officials, who have questioned the use of military troops on American soil. There were 2,188 National Guard troops assigned to the D.C. mission as of Tuesday — 925 D.C. National Guard members and 1,263 from other states, including 180 from West Virginia, according to the joint task force.
At Thursday’s news conference, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) said in brief remarks that the Guard members were “young people” who “should be at home in West Virginia with their families.” She said that “somebody drove across the country, came to Washington, D.C., to attack America, and that person will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb (D) has sued the Trump administration over the deployment — and recently secured a preliminary win in U.S. District Court, where a judge on Nov. 21 ordered the administration to cease the mission on Dec. 11 barring intervention by a higher court.
The Trump administration filed a notice to the court Tuesday that it planned to appeal the ruling, and on Wednesday it filed another emergency motion seeking to prevent the mission from being halted.
Hegseth told reporters Wednesday that he had conveyed a request from Trump to send 500 additional National Guard members to the District.
“This will only stiffen our resolve to ensure that we make Washington, D.C., safe and beautiful,” he said, speaking to reporters while visiting troops in the Dominican Republic. “President Trump will never back down.”
Tara Copp and Warren Strobel contributed to this report.
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