Sam Cooper

In what FBI Director Kash Patel called a “heinous act of terrorism,” senior U.S. officials say they have opened a “coast-to-coast” investigation into the gunman who opened fire on two National Guard members just blocks from the White House — an Afghan man who had worked with a Central Intelligence Agency–backed paramilitary unit during the war in Afghanistan and later resettled in the United States under a Biden-era evacuation program. The case is likely to further energize the Trump administration’s already robust deportation drive and its expanded checks on immigration.

The suspect, identified as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, allegedly ambushed two members of the West Virginia National Guard outside the Farragut West Metro station around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, in a busy commercial district a short walk from the presidential compound. Both soldiers remain in critical condition after emergency surgery, and the gunman was also wounded before being taken into custody, officials say.

Patel said his teams are investigating the attack as a “heinous act of terrorism,” which other officials have suggested could involve international terrorist networks, though they say the assailant appears to have acted alone.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said Thursday that Lakanwal had previously worked alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan. “He previously worked with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” Ratcliffe said, describing a unit that operated with American support until the collapse of the U.S.-backed Afghan government in 2021.

According to the Department of Homeland Security and multiple law-enforcement officials cited in U.S. media reports, Lakanwal entered the United States in September 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, the Biden administration program that airlifted tens of thousands of Afghans who had worked with U.S. forces and feared Taliban reprisals. He later applied for asylum and was granted it after President Donald Trump returned to office. Officials say he had no known criminal history and had most recently been living in Washington State, where a relative told NBC News he was working for Amazon.

NBC, citing a family member, also reported that Lakanwal served for roughly a decade in the Afghan army, including deployments in Kandahar alongside U.S. Special Forces. Those details cut to the heart of a politically explosive question in Washington — whether a man once trusted enough to fight alongside U.S. paramilitary personnel slipped through vetting as the Afghan war ended, or whether a former ally became radicalized after he arrived in America.

Officials say Wednesday’s attack unfolded in seconds. Two West Virginia Guard soldiers, part of a domestic security deployment ordered by Trump earlier this year, were on a “high-visibility patrol” near the entrance to Farragut West when a man rounded a corner, produced a handgun and opened fire without warning.

According to detailed accounts from federal officials and witnesses, the first victim — identified by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro as Sarah Beckstrom — was struck almost instantly and collapsed to the pavement. Pirro told reporters the alleged assassin was armed with a .357-caliber revolver and said that after shooting one of the victims, he “leaned over and shot him again.”

After exhausting his ammunition, the gunman allegedly grabbed the fallen soldier’s weapon and continued firing, wounding a second Guard member — Andrew Wolfe — before other troops and officers subdued him in a brief but chaotic struggle that involved both gunfire and a knife.

Reacting sharply to a reporter’s question about whether the Trump administration should have deployed National Guard units to city streets, Pirro replied that the Guard is necessary, adding that their presence “saved lives.” As officials left the news conference, Pirro brushed off a final question about whether the suspect was part of a radicalized Islamist network, saying only: “We won’t go there.”

Yesterday the Secret Service briefly locked down the White House as sirens converged on one of downtown Washington’s busiest commuter arteries. Witnesses told reporters they heard a short burst of shots followed by more sustained firing, then watched people flee into side streets and cafes as emergency vehicles arrived.

The FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force is leading the investigation. Law-enforcement officials say they are examining Lakanwal’s digital footprint, communications and travel history, and working with intelligence agencies to retrace his time in Afghanistan and the United States. Patel said FBI teams had conducted searches overnight on numerous electronic devices found at properties associated with the suspect — including in San Diego and in Washington State.

“You miss all the signs (of danger) when you do zero vetting,” Patel told reporters when asked if the Biden administration had erred in admitting the suspect.

In a televised address from his Mar-a-Lago resort late Wednesday, President Trump framed the attack as proof that his immigration hard line is justified. Calling the shooting “a heinous assault” and “an act of evil, an act of hatred, an act of terror,” Trump said the United States “will not put up with these kinds of assaults on law and order by people who shouldn’t even be in our country.”

He pledged to “re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under Biden” and vowed that “the animal who perpetrated this atrocity” would pay “the steepest possible price.” Shortly afterward, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced that it has halted processing of all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals — including asylum applications, permanent-residency cases and new entries — “pending further review of security and vetting protocols.”

According to an internal USCIS memo previously obtained by CBS News, the Trump administration had already directed immigration officials to review the cases of all refugees admitted during the Biden years, a cohort of roughly 233,000 people from multiple countries. Now, Afghans are facing an explicit freeze, with no end date. Meanwhile, Vice President J.D. Vance amplified the hard-line message, writing on X that the shooting proved critics of Biden’s Afghan-refugee policy wrong and declaring: “We must redouble our efforts to deport people with no right to be in our country.”