The United States suspended all immigration requests from Afghanistan after security officials zeroed in on an Afghan man suspected to be behind the shooting of two National Guard troops near the White House on Wednesday.
Identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, the suspect also suffered multiple shots in gunfire exchange with security officers before he was arrested by other National Guard troops present at the scene.
Rahmanullah had opened fire on two soldiers on routine patrol duty, before getting shot and arrested. According to a US Intel source, he has previously worked with various US government entities, including the intelligence service.
US President Donald Trump, who was at his resort at the time of the shooting, said it was “an act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror”.
Trump on Thursday wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, “We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan” under Biden.
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As per the Department of Justice records cited by Trump, the suspect had arrived in the US in September 2021, post-Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, under former US President Joe Biden’s resettlement programme for Afghans.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused the Biden administration of letting “unvetted” Afghans come into the US under “Operation Allies Welcome”.
Reportedly, more than 190,000 Afghans have been resettled in the United States since the Taliban took control of Kabul four years ago.
However, now several thousand Afghans who were waiting to get out of the country are stuck in Kabul after the US said it would stop processing visa applications from Thursday.
Some of the asylum seekers said “their last and only hope ended with yesterday’s shootout.”
The incident occurred just a week after a US federal judge in Washington ruled against Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in the capital, terming it unlawful.
But, after yesterday’s attack, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the deployment of 500 more US National Guard troops to Washington, bringing the total to 2,500.
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