Washington, DC – Authorities in the United States have identified the two National Guard members shot in Washington, DC, in what the FBI is investigating as an act of “terrorism”.
US Attorney Jeanine Pirro on Thursday named 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe as the West Virginia National Guard members who were shot a day earlier, just blocks from the White House.
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She said both service members had gone through surgery and were in critical condition. They had been deployed to the US capital as part of what President Donald Trump has described as an anticrime initiative.
“A lone gunman opened fire without provocation, ambush style, armed with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver,” Pirro told reporters at a news conference.
The attacker has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who came to the US in 2021 shortly after the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan.
Pirro said Lakanwal was a resident of Washington state and had driven across the country before the attack.
He has been charged with three counts of assault with intent to kill and possession of a firearm. He remains hospitalised after sustaining wounds that officials said did not appear to be life-threatening.
Pirro, a former Fox News host, added the charges could be upgraded if either of the National Guard members do not survive.
Kash Patel, the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), said the attack was being investigated as “terrorism” and a search warrant has been executed at Lakanwal’s home.
Speaking earlier on Fox News, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said the wounded personnel were “fighting for their lives”.
“Everyone, pray today for these two soldiers, these two Guardsmen, the man and woman,” she said. “But if something happens – I will tell you right now, I will tell you early – we will do everything in our power to seek the death penalty against that man.”
The attack came at a time of heightened scrutiny over Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Washington, DC, and other US cities.
Trump has said the deployment is needed to respond to high rates of crime in the US capital. Critics have decried the move as an incendiary show of force out of step with the needs of the federal district.
A judge last week ruled that Trump’s deployment of the National Guard was illegal but delayed enforcement of the decision until December 11.
After Thursday’s attack, the Trump administration quickly ordered 500 more National Guard soldiers to Washington, DC, adding to the nearly 2,200 military members already stationed there.
Revetting Afghans
In the wake of the attack, the Trump administration pledged to “re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under [Former President Joe] Biden”.
The administration also announced it was pausing all processing of “immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals”.
On Thursday, Trump administration officials continued to focus on the Biden administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was conducted after a deal struck by Trump and the Taliban during the Republican leader’s first term.
During the withdrawal, the Biden administration launched Operation Allies Welcome to quickly relocate Afghans to the US, including those who had worked alongside US forces and Western entities in Afghanistan for more than two decades.
About 77,000 Afghans came to the US under the programme.
On Thursday, John Ratcliffe, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), said in a statement that the attacker had worked with the agency “as a member of a partner force” in the southern Taliban stronghold of Kandahar before coming to the US.
The attack has sparked fear for Afghan evacuees in the US and those still seeking relocation from Afghanistan after many were already reeling from the Trump administration’s hardline restrictions on refugees and asylum seekers.
Many Afghans who worked with US and Western forces face threats of reprisals from the Taliban government.
In a statement, Shawn VanDiver, the president of the AfghanEvac humanitarian advocacy group, urged “the media, elected leaders and decision-makers and other people of influence not to demonize the Afghan community for the deranged choice this person made”.
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, echoed that sentiment, saying the “entire Afghan community must not be punished due to the actions of one individual”.
“That would be terribly unjust and complete nonsense,” he said. “Cool heads must prevail.”
