CIA says National Guard shooting suspect worked | Political News

The man accused of shooting two National Guard members in the nation’s capital allegedly worked with the CIA in Afghanistan as a member of a associate pressure, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said.

The suspected gunman was recognized as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who entered the U.S. in August 2021, a month after U.S. withdrawal from the nation following practically twenty years of occupation, under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration initiative to expedite asylum grants to Afghans, Fox News first reported.

FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Thursday during a press convention that they’re wanting into experiences about the shooting suspect’s alleged CIA ties, and that the case is being investigated as an act of terrorism. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi later told Fox News that she is contemplating pursuing the death penalty.

“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 CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe told Fox News Digital.

“The individual—and so many others—should have never been allowed to come here,” Ratcliffe added. “Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures.”

U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanne Pirro revealed the identities of the 2 victims—Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24—who stay in essential condition. The pair, who belonged to the West Virginia National Guard, had been sworn in less than 24 hours before the assault, she added.

Law enforcement said the troops have been ambushed at 2:15 p.m. Wednesday around the nook close to Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., before getting shot by the suspect with a .357 Smith & Wesson Magnum. Other troops wereswiftly ready to neutralize the suspect. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser confirmed the suspect was taken into custody, describing the assault as a “targeted shooting.”

The assault prompted a temporary lockdown at the White House. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also requested to deploy an further 500 troops to the capital following the shooting, despite the initial deployment still being under legal review.

President Donald Trump, who is in Florida for the Thanksgiving vacation, described the shooting as a “savage attack” in which Guardsmen have been “shot at point-blank range in a monstrous ambush-style attack just steps away from the White House” in an online tackle to the nation Wednesday night.

He added that the shooting was an “act of evil and act of hatred and an act of terror. It was a crime against our entire nation. It was a crime against humanity.”

After the suspect’s identification was revealed, Trump announced that he would “indefinitely” halt processing all immigration from Afghanistan, a transfer that has been subject to intense criticism.

President Trump ordered more than 2,000 National Guard troops to the capital in August as half of a bigger project of deploying federal troops to and taking over Democratic-led cities to purportedly tackle crime.

The day before the shooting, the president praised his transfer, noting that Washington, D.C., is “now considered a totally safe city,” but before was “one of our most unsafe places” in the nation.