The suspected gunman who shot two National Guard troops near the White House worked with CIA-backed military units during the U.S. war in his home country of Afghanistan, according to the agency.
Sources familiar with the investigation identified the suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, and CIA Director John Ratcliffe said he came to the U.S. in September 2021 through a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans who had worked with the U.S. government, reported the New York Times.
“In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, 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 C.I.A., as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe said in a statement, adding the suspect “should have never been allowed to come here.”
Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was granted asylum in April 2025, under the Trump administration, according to three law enforcement sources.
The two West Virginia National Guard troops were shot Wednesday afternoon near a metro station in downtown Washington, D.C., while conducting “high visibility patrols” ordered by the president when they were shot, according to law enforcement officials.
They were listed in critical condition Thursday morning.
Officials said the suspect was subdued after “some back and forth” with the guardsmen and then taken to a nearby hospital.
The CIA said the suspect had worked for multiple U.S. government agencies in Afghanistan, including a CIA-backed unit in the southern province of Kandahar.
Afghan units trained by the CIA played an important role in the American evacuation in August 2021, and although many Afghan military units dissolved during the Taliban takeover, the agency’s partner units remained operational and helped transport U.S. citizens and Afghans who worked with U.S. forces to Kabul to be evacuated.
The president, speaking from his Mar-a-Lago resort during the Thanksgiving holiday week, called the shooting “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror” and blamed his presence in the U.S. on “those infamous flights.”
The U.S. will immediately stop all immigration requests relating to Afghanistan, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said another 500 National Guard troops would be added to the 2,000 already stationed in the capital.
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