WASHINGTON — President Trump said Thursday that one of the two National Guard members allegedly shot by an Afghan national near the White House a day earlier had died, calling the suspect — who had worked with the CIA in his native country — a “savage monster.”

As part of his Thanksgiving call to U.S. troops, Trump said that he had just learned that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, had died, while Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was “fighting for his life.”

“She’s just passed away,” Trump said. The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”

Trump used the announcement to say the shooting was a “terrorist attack” as he criticized the Biden administration for enabling Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the U.S. without sufficient vetting. The president has deployed National Guard members in part to assist in his administration’s mass deportation efforts.

Trump suggested that the shooter was mentally unstable after the war and departure from Afghanistan.

“He went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts,” the president said. “It happens too often with these people.”

The suspect charged with the shooting is Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29. He had worked in a special CIA-backed Afghan army unit before emigrating from Afghanistan, according to two sources who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the situation, and #AfghanEvac, a group that helps resettle Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the two-decade war.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, declined to provide a motive for Wednesday’s brazen act of violence. The presence of troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has become a political flashpoint.

The West Virginia National Guard said Beckstrom and Wolfe, who remained hospitalized in critical condition on Thursday, had been deployed in D.C. since August.

Pirro said that Lakanwal drove across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. The suspect currently faces charges of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. Pirro said that “it’s too soon to say” what the suspect’s motives were.

The rare shooting of National Guard members on American soil comes amid court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.

Trump issued an emergency order in August that federalized the local police force and sent in National Guard troops. The order expired a month later. But the troops have remained in the city, where nearly 2,200 troops currently are assigned, according to the government’s latest update.

The Guard members have patrolled neighborhoods, train stations and other locations, participated in highway checkpoints and been assigned to pick up trash and guard sports events. The Trump administration quickly ordered 500 more National Guard members to Washington following Wednesday’s shooting.

The suspect who was in custody also was shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Suspect worked with CIA during Afghanistan war

A resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as the suspect’s cousin said that Lakanwal and his brother had worked in a special Afghan army unit known as Zero Units in the southern province of Kandahar. A former official from the unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal was a team leader and his brother was a platoon leader.

The cousin spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said Lakanwal had started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012, and was later promoted to become a team leader and a GPS specialist.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans but backed by the CIA that served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers. Activists had attributed abuses to the units. They played a key role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country, providing security around Kabul International Airport as the Americans and others left amid the Taliban offensive that seized the country.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that Lakanwal’s relationship with the U.S. government ended shortly following the evacuation of U.S. servicemembers from Afghanistan.

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said. Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement.

The initiative brought roughly 76,000 people to the U.S., many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators after the American-led invasion following the Al Qaeda attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It has since faced intense scrutiny from Trump and his allies, congressional Republicans and some government watchdogs over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Wash., about 80 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

Wednesday night, in a video message released on social media, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who entered under the Biden administration.

“If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” he said, adding that the shooting was “a crime against our entire nation.”

For the record:

9:20 a.m. Nov. 27, 2025An earlier version of this article misspelled suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s last name as Lakamal.

Richer, Fields, Izaguirre and Finley write for the Associated Press. Associated Press journalists Konstantin Toropin, Seung Min Kim, Safiyah Riddle, Matt Brown, Mike Balsamo, Eric Tucker, Jesse Bedayn, Josh Boak, Evan Vucci, Nathan Ellgren, John Raby, Hallie Golden, Michael R. Sisak and John Seewer contributed to this report.