An Afghan refugee suspected of shooting two US National Guard members in Washington, DC worked for a CIA-backed paramilitary force in Afghanistan, the agency said Thursday.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal was evacuated following the US withdrawal in August 2021, and received asylum this year. Authorities said he drove from Washington state to commit Wednesday’s attack, which the FBI is investigating as terrorism. Both victims are in critical condition, and one is unlikely to survive, her father said.
The shooting will further inflame a highly politicized debate over US President Donald Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops, who are “stranded somewhere on this battlefield of partisan politics,” a former Homeland Security official argued in The Atlantic. “Politics is not a military mission.”