By Jasper Ward, Lucia Mutikani and Julia Harte
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The FBI searched multiple properties on Thursday in a widening probe into an Afghan national suspected in the shooting of two National Guard members, an attack that drew accusations from the Trump administration of Biden-era immigration vetting failures and prompted a sweeping review of asylum cases.
Investigators were conducting what officials said was a terrorism investigation after Wednesday's shooting near the White House. They raided a home in Washington state linked to the suspect, who officials said was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan before coming to the U.S. in 2021 under a resettlement program.
U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C. Jeanine Pirro identified the two critically wounded Guard members as Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24.
Agents seized numerous electronic devices from the residence of the suspect, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, including cellphones, laptops, and iPads, and interviewed his relatives, FBI Director Kash Patel told a news conference.
Pirro said the suspect drove cross-country and then ambushed the Guard members while they were patrolling near the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
Armed with a powerful revolver, a .357 Magnum, he shot one member who fell and then shot again before firing multiple times at the second member. The gunman was wounded in an exchange of fire with Guard members before he was arrested. He was in hospital under heavy guard on Thursday.
The alleged assailant, who lived in Washington state with his wife and five children, appeared to have acted alone, said Jeff Carroll, executive assistant chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department.
SUSPECT WORKED WITH U.S. FORCES IN AFGHANISTAN
Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News the U.S. government planned to bring terrorism charges against the gunman and seek a sentence of life in prison "at a minimum."
At her briefing, Pirro said the gunman could be charged with murder in the first degree if either of the Guard members does not survive their injuries.
The father of Beckstrom told the New York Times his daughter was unlikely to survive. “I’m holding her hand right now,” Gary Beckstrom told the newspaper.
At the press conference in Washington, D.C., Patel described the shootings as a "heinous act of terrorism," but neither he nor Pirro offered a possible motive.
Pirro and Patel were quick to cast blame on the administration of President Donald Trump's White House predecessor, Joe Biden, for policies that allowed the Afghan immigrant into the U.S., but they offered no evidence to support their assertions.
The alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under Trump, according to a U.S. government file on him seen by Reuters.
Still, this case may give Trump, who has made cracking down on both legal and illegal immigration a centerpiece of his presidency, an opening to argue that even legal pathways like asylum pose security risks for Americans.
Less than 24 hours after the shooting, Trump officials began ordering widespread reviews of immigration policies.
The Trump administration was launching a review of all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration as well as Green Cards issued to citizens of 19 countries, Department of Homeland Security officials said.
That followed an announcement, just hours after the shooting, by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services of an immediate and indefinite suspension of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals.
SUSPECT DROVE ACROSS COUNTRY
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that Lakanwal had worked with CIA-backed local units in Afghanistan, but gave no further details.
The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, identified the CIA-backed force as a Zero Unit, trained and supported by the U.S. spy agency in the southern province of Kandahar.
The units comprised a paramilitary group trained to conduct night raids and clandestine missions during the U.S. war in Afghanistan and, with thousands of members, had officially become part of the Afghan intelligence service by the time the U.S. withdrew its troops, the Times said.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era program to resettle thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the Afghanistan war and feared reprisals from Taliban forces who seized control after the U.S. withdrawal there.
“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,” Ratcliffe said in a statement. “This individual - and so many others - should have never been allowed to come here.”
A Trump administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Lakanwal applied for asylum in December 2024 and was approved on April 23 this year, three months after Trump took office. Lakanwal, who resided in Washington state, had no known criminal history, the official said.
The two Guard members from West Virginia were part of a militarized law enforcement mission ordered by Trump in August and challenged in court by Washington, D.C., officials.
Trump ordered 500 more troops to be deployed in the capital in the wake of the shooting, joining about 2,200 already in the city as part of the president's immigration and crime crackdown targeting Democratic-led cities.
It was unclear if the shooting would lead to changes to how the Guard operates in cities. Members typically patrol in small groups, including on foot, mostly armed with pistols.
(Reporting by Leah Douglas, Jana Winter, Phil Stewart, Ted Hesson, Lucia Mutikani, Jasper Ward and Tim Reid; Additional reporting by Idrees Ali, Jeff Mason, Steve Gorman; Writing by Julia Harte, Rod Nickel and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by Ross Colvin, Deepa Babington and Diane Craft)
