The suspect in the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, D.C., has been identified as 29-year-old Afghan citizen Rahmanullah Lakanwal.
Lakanwal arrived in the U.S. in 2021 as part of the evacuation of Afghan allies who worked with U.S. troops during the 20-year war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
He applied for asylum in 2024, and it was granted in 2025, according to CBS News. He then applied for a green card, and his application was pending.
While in Afghanistan, Lakanwal worked alongside the CIA “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” according to the agency’s director, John Ratcliffe. Kandahar was a Taliban stronghold that saw some of the fiercest fighting of the war.
After the war, Lakanwal was one of about 800 Afghan refugees who were resettled in Washington State with the financial help of the federal government. He lived with his wife and five children.
“This is a fluid investigation,” Jeanine Pirro, U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said Thursday. “People are working around the clock. It’s too soon to say what the motive is, but there are definitely areas that we’re looking into.”
Andrew Leyden/Getty Images
Brigadier General Leland Blanchard of the National Guard speaks to the press on Thursday as FBI Director Kash Patel (front, right) and US attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro (front, left), look on during a press conference about the shooting of two West Virginia National Guard soldiers. (Photo by Andrew Leyden/Getty Images)
Lakanwal drove from Bellingham, about 20 miles south of the Canadian border, to Washington, D.C., to carry out the attack, authorities said.
On Wednesday, Lakanwal darted from around a corner just a few blocks from the White House and ambushed two National Guard members, firing from a powerful .357 Magnum Smith & Wesson revolver, officials said. He critically wounded Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, before being shot by another Guard member and arrested.
Beckstrom and Wolfe are both from West Virginia, and the state’s governor initially said Wednesday that the two had died in the shooting, before walking back those comments. The two soldiers were listed Thursday in critical condition.
More than 2,000 National Guard troops were already in the nation’s capital following orders from President Trump, and Trump ordered 500 more troops into the city following Wednesday’s attack. Trump was in Florida, not the White House, during Wednesday’s surprise shooting.
With News Wire Services
