Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the Afghan national charged in Wednesday's shooting of two National Guard troops near the White House, served for more than a decade as a mercenary for U.S. forces in wartime Afghanistan, senior intelligence officials told Newsmax. They said his mission was to kill Taliban fighters alongside American troops.
"We paid him a decent salary and kept him for 10 years," one official said, "so we know he was good at what he did."
Lakanwal now faces at least four federal charges in the ambush-style attack near the Farragut West Metro station — a crowded area most days, especially during the holiday season — that left two newly sworn-in National Guard members fighting for their lives.
Andrew Wolfe, 24, and Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had recently joined the West Virginia National Guard and were conducting a "high visibility" patrol just blocks from the White House, pursuant to President Donald Trump's executive order deploying Guard units to combat crime in the capital.
Nearby Guard personnel shot Lakanwal, 29, and took him into custody at the scene. Sources said he remains in stable but critical condition at a nearby hospital, connected to a ventilator and unable to answer investigators' questions.
At a news conference in Washington on Thanksgiving morning, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said the charges filed so far include three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and one count of possessing a firearm during a violent crime. If convicted, Lakanwal could face 15 years in prison on the assault charges alone. Pirro added the charges will be upgraded to murder if one or both soldiers do not survive.
When she noted that the soldiers remain in critical condition, Pirro added: "You know what that means."
At the same news conference, FBI Director Kash Patel said the bureau is investigating Lakanwal's connections to "partner agencies" in Afghanistan.
It was a reference to confirmation earlier from CIA Director John Ratcliffe that the Afghan national collaborated with U.S. forces as a member of the Kandahar Strike Group — an elite counterterrorism unit equipped, trained and commanded by CIA officers during the long-running war.
U.S. intelligence officials told Newsmax that records show Lakanwal began working with CIA commanders as early as 2011 and continued conducting lethal missions until the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021.
The Department of Homeland Security said Lakanwal entered the U.S. in early September 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program that resettled 200,000 Afghans who assisted U.S. forces and feared reprisals after the Taliban takeover.
"This individual is in this country for one reason and one reason alone," Patel said Thursday. "Because of the disastrous withdrawal from the Biden administration and the failure to vet in any way, shape, or form this individual and countless others."
Intelligence officials took issue with that claim, noting that Lakanwal "was vetted at the time" he joined U.S. forces overseas. They said American personnel conducted biometrics on him to confirm his identity.
However, in remote Afghan regions, teenage boys and men often do not know their birth dates, carry identification or even use the same name consistently. The chief screening standards in such circumstances, officials said, were to determine whether a recruit appeared aligned with the U.S. mission and had no known ties to the Taliban, ISIS or other militant groups.
Lakanwal demonstrated his willingness to "kill the bad guys," the officials said, which weighed heavily in evaluations during wartime.
"It's one thing to vet a guy to be your mercenary," one senior intelligence official told Newsmax. "It's another to vet him to be your neighbor."
The officials added that although Lakanwal completed a visa application in 2021, the vetting conducted at that point consisted mainly of confirming there was "nothing derogatory" on record. They said the Biden administration performed only "minimal vetting" on most admitted under Operation Allies Welcome. By contrast, they noted, Iraqi collaborators applying for U.S. asylum after the Iraq War often waited two years or more in third countries while screening was completed.
In September 2021, then–White House press secretary Jen Psaki insisted: "I can absolutely assure you that no one is coming into the United States of America who has not been through a thorough screening and background check process."
Officials said it is impossible to estimate how many militants Lakanwal killed during his decade with the CIA-backed strike group, because such engagements were rarely documented.
They said the FBI and National Counterterrorism Center are now poring through databases and electronic devices seized in Lakanwal's hometown of Bellingham, Washington, to determine whether he was radicalized after arriving in the U.S. or had always harbored extremist views while cooperating with U.S. forces for financial gain.
The investigation has been complicated, officials said, by new tactics used by international terrorist groups to evade Western surveillance.
"ISIS has different ways of communicating today, such as through video games and social media," one official said. "Their recruitment efforts are not as easily traceable as phone calls, texts, and more traditional methods."
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