The Afghan man accused of shooting two members of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday had worked with C.I.A.-supported military units in Afghanistan, the agency said.
The C.I.A. said that the shooter had been part of a C.I.A.-backed Afghan “partner force” in the southern province of Kandahar, a stronghold of the Taliban insurgency during the two-decade war there. Officials identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.
After American forces withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021 and gave way to Taliban rule, the suspect was brought to the United States as part of a program to evacuate Afghans who had worked with the agency, according to the C.I.A. director, John Ratcliffe.
Mr. Lakanwal’s affiliation with a C.I.A.-supported unit was earlier reported by Fox News Digital.
“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,” Mr. Ratcliffe said in a statement.
Mr. Ratcliffe said the alleged assailant “should have never been allowed to come here.”
An Afghan intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t allowed to comment publicly on the issue, confirmed that Mr. Lakanwal had served in Kandahar in one of what were known as Zero Units, which were formally part of the Afghan intelligence service. The Zero Units were a paramilitary force that had been trained for nighttime raids targeting suspected Taliban members, and were accused by human rights groups of widespread killings of civilians.
The intelligence official said that one of Mr. Lakanwal’s brothers was the deputy commander of the Zero Unit in Kandahar, which was known as 03.
The Afghan units trained and supported by the C.I.A. played an important role in the American evacuation as the Taliban drove out the U.S.-backed government in 2021. While many Afghan military units dissolved in the face of the Taliban takeover, the C.I.A.’s partners remained operational and helped bring U.S. citizens and Afghans who had worked with American forces to Kabul to be evacuated out of the country.
Mr. Lakanwal grew up in a village in the eastern province of Khost. A childhood friend, who asked to be identified only as Muhammad because he feared Taliban reprisals, said that Mr. Lakanwal had suffered from mental health issues and was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused.
Muhammad said he had last seen Mr. Lakanwal a few weeks before the Taliban takeover in 2021, when he came to Khost to marry his second wife. Mr. Lakanwal had started smoking weed, he said, and ended up divorcing his wife a few days after the wedding.
He said he last spoke with Mr. Lakanwal in 2023, when he appeared to have settled well in the United States with his first wife and their children. But he said he couldn’t forget what Mr. Lakanwal told him the last time they saw each other in Khost.
“He would tell me and our friends that their military operations were very tough, their job was very difficult, and they were under a lot of pressure,” Muhammad said.
“When he saw blood, bodies, and the wounded, he could not tolerate it, and it put a lot of pressure on his mind, even if they were from the enemies.”
Taliban officials on Thursday denounced the actions of the Zero Units during the war. Sediqullah Quraishi Badloon, a provincial official in Nangarhar, in eastern Afghanistan, accused the groups of looting during the chaotic fall of the U.S.-backed government.
“After that, they fled to the United States in search of a better life,” Mr. Badloon said in a social media post. “These traitors still do not let the Afghan people live in peace.”
Julian E. Barnes covers the U.S. intelligence agencies and international security matters for The Times. He has written about security issues for more than two decades.
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