{"id":55290,"date":"2025-11-29T03:11:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-29T03:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/55290\/"},"modified":"2025-11-29T03:11:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-29T03:11:12","slug":"top-trump-intel-official-reveals-dc-terror-suspect-rahmanullah-lakanwal-wasnt-vetted-for-entry-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/55290\/","title":{"rendered":"Top Trump intel official reveals DC terror suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal wasn’t vetted for entry to US"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 A top Trump administration intelligence official said Friday that the\u00a0suspected Afghan terrorist<\/a>\u00a0who gunned down two National Guard service members was \u201cnot vetted\u201d before being allowed to enter the US in 2021.<\/p>\n

Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence,\u00a0posted on X<\/a>\u00a0that the Biden administration was to blame for the lapse in vetting of\u00a0Rahmanullah Lakanwal<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 who is being charged with killing one of the troops,\u00a0Guardswoman Sarah Beckstrom<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The NCTC director\u00a0said there were more than 2 million in total who entered \u201cfrom Muslim majority nations & regions surged \u2026 often with minimal scrutiny amid record border crossings\u201d \u2014 including 85,000 Afghans who \u201cwere rapidly admitted into our country without the rigorous vetting that has protected us in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n

Terror suspect Rahmanullah Lakanwal\u00a0is accused of opening fire on the National Guard. FBI<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a deadly combination,\u201d Kent declared, noting that\u00a0the suspected terrorist \u201cwas only vetted to serve as a soldier to fight against the Taliban, AQ, & ISIS IN Afghanistan, he was NOT vetted for his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

A senior US official confirmed that he had been \u201cvetted to fight\u201d alongside US forces against Taliban, al-Qaeda and ISIS militants between 2011 and 2021 \u2014 but that this was a \u201clow standard\u201d that \u201chas never been used before to let people into the US.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPrior to Biden it took 18 months or longer for someone to be granted a Special Immigrant Visa, including the applicant needing to flee to a third country so the US government could interview and vet them,\u201d the official noted. \u201cBiden threw all of this out and applied tactical war time vetting to people seeking entry into the homeland.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both the Department of Homeland Security and CIA have also blamed President Trump\u2019s predecessor for enabling the DC shooting with lax vetting during the hasty withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021.<\/p>\n

National Guardswoman Sarah Beckstrom succumbed to her injuries after being shot and passed away. Joint Force Headquarters \u2013 West Virginia National Guard<\/p>\n

\u201c[T]he Biden Administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,\u201d said CIA Director John Ratcliffe on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin added that Lakanwal had been \u201cparoled in\u201d with tens of thousands of other Afghan refugees.<\/p>\n

Follow the latest on the National Guard shooting in Washington, DC: <\/p>\n

Lakanwal, 29,\u00a0ambushed two National Guard members<\/a>\u00a0in a cowardly shooting on Thanksgiving eve in DC. Both had been deployed\u00a0from West Virginia as part of a federal surge to crack down on crime in the nation\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n

Surveillance footage from Wednesday\u2019s shooting showing a National Guard member down. Elizabeth Gomes via Storyful<\/p>\n

The armed soldiers were just blocks away from the White House when he rounded a corner and opened fire with a revolver,\u00a0striking Beckstrom, 20, first. She died the following day at a local hospital.<\/p>\n

Lakanwal only fired four bullets from the handgun before picking up Beckstrom\u2019s rifle and turning it on Guardsman Andrew Wolfe, 24, who was hit and remains in critical condition at the hospital.<\/p>\n

The barbaric terrorist attack in Washington D.C. by an Afghan terrorist has spurred righteous outrage over the Biden admin\u2019s policy of importing people hostile to our nation. <\/p>\n

It is true that the terrorist who conducted the attack in D.C. was \u201cvetted\u201d by the intelligence\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2014 NCTC Director Joe Kent (@NCTCKent) November 28, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n

He exchanged gunfire with other troops before being subdued by an unidentified hero Guardsman, who bull-rushed the shooter while he was reloading and stabbed him repeatedly in the head with a pocket knife to subdue him.<\/p>\n

Lakanwal was relocated to the US under former President Joe Biden\u2019s \u201cOperation Allies Welcome\u201d program, which brought nearly 80,000 Afghans to the US who had battled against the Taliban.<\/p>\n

The suspected terrorist seen attacking National Guard soldiers. Obtained by the Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n

The Kandahar Strike Force he joined was a CIA-backed paramilitary group that fought alongside US forces \u2014 but was also\u00a0accused of being a death squad that tortured and executed civilians.<\/a><\/p>\n

Roughly\u00a010,000 members of the so-called \u201cZero Units\u201d eventually\u00a0settled in Washington State near Seattle<\/a>. Lakanwal ended up in Bellingham, Wash., with his wife and five children in September 2021.<\/p>\n

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McLaughlin noted in her statement Thursday that \u201cthis monster would not have been removed because of his parole,\u201d even if the Trump\u00a0administration sought to remove him earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cBiden signed into law that parole program, and then entered into the 2023 Ahmed Court Settlement, which bound USCIS to adjudicate his asylum claim on an expedited basis,\u201d McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n

Lakanwal was living in Bellingham, Washington as part of the \u201cOperation Allies Welcome\u201d program. Barbara Davidson for the N.Y.Post<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has since \u201cstopped indefinitely pending further review of security and vetting protocols\u201d any immigration requests \u201crelating to Afghan nationals,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump Administration is also reviewing all asylum cases approved under the Biden Administration, which failed to vet these applicants on a massive scale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follow The Post\u2019s live coverage of President Trump and national politics for the latest news and analysis<\/a><\/p>\n

The president also personally directed a sweeping review of green card holders from\u00a019 countries of concern<\/a>, and asylum applications from all countries are now paused. <\/p>\n

Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson at the State Department, said Friday that visa processing for Afghan nationals is now paused in the wake of the horrific terror attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Trump administration has no higher priority than ensuring the safety of Americans and has launched a whole-of-government effort to defend America\u2019s national security,\u201d Pigott said. <\/p>\n

According to a Homeland Security inspector general\u2019s\u00a0report in 2022<\/a>, officials\u00a0\u201cdid not always have critical data to properly screen, vet, or inspect the evacuees\u201d from Afghanistan in particular. That\u00a0Biden-era program<\/a>\u00a0let around 76,000 Afghans into the US.<\/p>\n

US President Donald Trump shows a printed photo during a call with service members from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, on November 27, 2025. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lakanwal applied for both a special immigrant visa and asylum, the latter of which he asked for in December 2024 and it was granted the following April.<\/p>\n

Chad Robichaux, a former Force Recon Marine who deployed to Afghanistan eight times and was part of a coalition effort that evacuated 17,000 nationals from the country in 2021, claimed to The Post that there was \u201czero vetting\u201d for tens of thousands of Afghans\u00a0flown out of Kabul in the final days of the withdrawal.<\/p>\n

\u201cProbably close to 100,000 of them were flown straight from Kabul to the United States to different airfields, and they were let go into the American population. We have no idea who they are \u2014 zero vetting,\u201d said Robichaux, who authored the 2023 book \u201cSaving Aziz<\/a>: How the Mission to Help One Became a Calling to Rescue Thousands from the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

U.S. Airmen and U.S. Marines guide qualified evacuees aboard a U.S. Air Force C-17 Globemaster III in support of the Afghanistan evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA), Afghanistan, Aug. 21, 2021. U.S. Central Command Public Affairs<\/p>\n

\u201cJust because you\u2019re approved to work with special operations of the CIA, that doesn\u2019t give you a pathway to the United States. You still have to go through the State Department. You still have to apply. He would still have to have applied for a special immigrant visa process,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Trump suggested that Lakanwal \u201cwent nuts\u201d shortly before traveling to DC and firing on US troops \u2014 and\u00a0Robichaux shared that as a special operations soldier, he worked side by side with other Afghans who were later \u201cdisloyal\u201d to the US and \u201cturned on\u201d them.<\/p>\n

Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition at the hospital. Andrew Wolfe \/ Facebook<\/p>\n

\u201cI know guys that have lost their lives being out on operations in Afghanistan,\u201d he recalled, mentioning one Afghan national who was trained by the CIA, worked with his team and whom he wrote about in his book about rescuing an interpreter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI, like, slept on the side of mountains with this guy \u2026 trusted him with my life. He turns on us,\u201d he recounted, \u201chas a vehicle bomb driven into my house, had 12 of our teammates rolled up, captured and killed, and I got abducted by a foreign intelligence agency because of this guy.\u201d<\/p>\n

D.C. residents bring flags for a memorial set up near the White House after two National Guard members were shot in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 28, 2025. REUTERS<\/p>\n

Robichaux added: \u201cThey didn\u2019t know who was on those planes. He could have worked for the CIA. He could have worked for the Taliban.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Lakanwal\u2019s relatives\u00a0told NBC News<\/a>\u00a0that he eventually worked as a contractor for Amazon Flex as a delivery driver after resettling in the US.<\/p>\n

A friend also recalled to the New York Times that he suffered mental problems after seeing combat in Afghanistan\u00a0\u201cWhen he saw blood, bodies, and the wounded, he could not tolerate it,\u201d the friend was quoted as saying. \u201cIt put a lot of pressure on his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n

A rep for\u00a0Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

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