EXCERPTS: Two West Virginia National Guard members who deployed to the nation’s capital were shot Wednesday afternoon just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence that the mayor described as a targeted attack. FBI Director Kash Patel and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said they were hospitalized in critical condition.
The rare shooting of National Guard members, on the day before Thanksgiving, comes as the presence of the troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has been a flashpoint issue for months, fueling court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.
A suspect who was in custody also was shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
[...] The suspect has been identified by law enforcement officials as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, but authorities were still working to fully confirm his background, they said. The people could not discuss details of an ongoing investigation and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Hours later, in a video message released on social media, President Donald Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who entered under the Biden administration.
YazataNov 27, 2025 04:41 AM (This post was last modified: Nov 27, 2025 05:17 AM by Yazata.)
Rahmanullah Lakanwal is reportedly a 29 year old Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021, as part of Joe Biden's "operation allies welcome" after the botched pullout from Afghanistan and subsequent Taliban takeover. While supposedly designed to give asylum to Afghans who had assisted the pro-US regime that collapsed or served as guides and translators for the Americans, we all remember the scenes of chaos at the Kabul airport. Thousands of young men were forcing their way into aircraft without any attempt to vet them or even learn their identities. Women, children and the Afghans who had actually helped us were shit-out-of-luck. The people who got aboard the planes were the strongest young men willing and able to fight their way on.
Kristi Noem says: "The suspect who shot our brave National Guardsmen is an Afghan national who was one of the many unvetted, mass paroled into the United States under Operation Allies Welcome on September 8, 2021, under the Biden Administration."
Well, Lakanwal's permission to remain in the United States expired and he had become an illegal alien before he resurfaced today. Photos apparently showing him being loaded into an ambulance today after reportedly being shot show that he has grown out a big, black radical-Islamic beard. (Most Muslim men I know don't have beards, but it's apparently a thing among the radical Islamists.)
Reports are that he is refusing to talk to police at the hospital where he's being treated and carried no identification. It took the FBI several hours to identify him. I expect that they have already found his residence (I've heard unconfirmed reports he was living on the west coast) and are looking through his phone, computer, emails and social media presence.
The Feds say that they are treating this as a foreign terrorism case.
Photo supposedly of him before he grew out the beard. I don't know where the photo came from, maybe from when they processed him into the country. (Where they probably got his fingerprints and perhaps other biometric stuff.)
YazataNov 27, 2025 08:53 AM (This post was last modified: Nov 27, 2025 09:04 AM by Yazata.)
Fox News is said to be reporting (I got it second hand) that Rahmanullah Lakanwal served in the 'Commando Corps' of the Afghan National Army. Not only that, he was part of the CIA-backed Kandahar Strike Force. This unit was notorious for 'off the record' operations including assassinations and extra-judicial killings. He might have been the Afghan equivalent of a special operations guy (of the Sicario sort).
So apparently he wasn't just some guy who forced his way onto a military transport plane. He was somebody the US did want to evacuate, since he would have been killed had the Taliban got their hands on him. But that said, he was also a stone-cold killer.
If there's any truth to this, then it could provide a motive, if the US government was threatening to deport him and if he faced certain death if he returned to Afghanistan.
(Nov 27, 2025 08:53 AM)Yazata Wrote: Fox News is said to be reporting (I got it second hand) that Rahmanullah Lakanwal served in the 'Commando Corps' of the Afghan National Army. Not only that, he was part of the CIA-backed Kandahar Strike Force. This unit was notorious for 'off the record' operations including assassinations and extra-judicial killings. He might have been the Afghan equivalent of a special operations guy (of the Sicario sort).
So apparently he wasn't just some guy who forced his way onto a military transport plane. He was somebody the US did want to evacuate, since he would have been killed had the Taliban got their hands on him. But that said, he was also a stone-cold killer.
If there's any truth to this, then it could provide a motive, if the US government was threatening to deport him and if he faced certain death if he returned to Afghanistan.
I guess prison for life in USA beats getting off a plane at Kandahar.
YazataNov 27, 2025 08:32 PM (This post was last modified: Nov 27, 2025 08:52 PM by Yazata.)
(Nov 27, 2025 08:53 AM)Yazata Wrote: Fox News is said to be reporting (I got it second hand) that Rahmanullah Lakanwal served in the 'Commando Corps' of the Afghan National Army. Not only that, he was part of the CIA-backed Kandahar Strike Force...
If there's any truth to this...
It's been confirmed by CIA Director John Ratcliffe that Lakanwal worked with the CIA as "a member of a partner force in Kandahar". "“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 CIA,” Ratcliffe said.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency announced an immediate and indefinite halt to the “processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals” pending a review of security and vetting protocols.
Meanwhile, FBI Director Kash Patel says that the FBI quickly got warrants and searched the house where Lakanwal was staying in Washington State. Apparently the FBI was also exercising search warrants in San Diego as well.
Kash Patel said, "We were able to hit the house in Washington State. During that process, we seized numerous electronic devices, to include cell phones, laptops, iPads and other material that is being analyzed as we speak. Pursuant to that investigation and any known associates of the subject and of that house is how we ended up in San Diego, where interviews were conducted and are going to be continued to be conducted."
YazataNov 28, 2025 12:36 AM (This post was last modified: Nov 28, 2025 12:55 AM by Yazata.)
One of the two soldiers shot in DC has been identified (by her father). He says that her wound is fatal and she won't survive. (I believe that she might have been shot in the head.) He says that he is in the hospital holding his daughter's hand for the last time, then they will pull the plug on the life support and let her die.
And the President just announced that U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom of Summersville, West Virginia, one of the National Guardsmen shot yesterday in Washington, D.C., has just passed away.
INTRO: The suspect in the horrific shooting of two National Guard members in DC is expected to recover from his own injuries, setting up a criminal trial in the nation’s capital.
“I think the guy’s going to live. Nobody’s going to be able to say anything and he’s going to stand trial,” a law enforcement official told The Post, providing an update on the condition of alleged shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29.
“I know that he underwent surgery the night it happened,” said the official, who noted that the trial process would require prosecutors to hold back information on Lakanwal, who allegedly fired on two West Virginia National Guard members just blocks from the White House on Nov. 26.
A spokesperson for Joint Task Force — DC, which oversees the deployment, said Saturday there were no updates on the second Guard member, Andrew Wolfe. He was in critical condition following the shooting. “Andrew is fighting for his life right now,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick James Morrisey told Fox & Friends Saturday.
US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Friday the government will bring charges of first-degree murder against the alleged gunman.
“There are certainly many more charges to come, but we are upgrading the initial charges of assault to murder in the first degree,” she said following the death of Beckstrom.
A hero National Guard member who responded to the incident armed only with a pocket knife took down the suspect, according to reports.
Lakanwal “disappeared” about two weeks before the attack, according to a neighbor, and drove across the country from his home in Bellingham, Washington, officials said... (MORE - details)
Nov 27, 2025 03:58 AM
(This post was last modified: Nov 27, 2025 04:13 AM by C C.)
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