National Guard shooting suspect worked with US military in Afghanistan: US media

WASHINGTON: The man suspected of shooting two National Guard soldiers near the White House was an Afghan national who served alongside US troops in Afghanistan, US media reported on Wednesday.

NBC News, citing a relative of the suspect and several law enforcement officials, identified the man as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal.

NBC said Lakanwal came to the United States in September 2021 after having served in the Afghan army for 10 years supporting US Special Forces troops.

Fox News, citing Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, said Lakanwal worked with various US government entities, including the intelligence service.

Wednesday’s shooting left two US National Guard soldiers critically wounded.

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that an Afghan man who fled the Taliban was the suspect and had been taken into custody after the daylight shooting two blocks from the White House.

The suspect had arrived in the United States in 2021 “on those infamous flights,” Trump said, referring to the evacuations of Afghans fleeing as the Taliban took over the country in the wake of the US retreat after 20 years of war.

The attack, carried out next to a metro station at a time when the streets and offices of downtown Washington were bustling, also puts a new focus on Trump’s controversial militarization of an anti-crime push around the country.