U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, Succumbs to Injuries; Afghan National Charged in Ambush Attack That Left Two West Virginia Guard Members Shot
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died Thursday from injuries sustained in an ambush-style shooting near the White House, President Donald Trump announced during a video call with service members from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
“She was savagely attacked,” President Trump said. “She’s dead.”
Specialist Beckstrom, a member of the West Virginia National Guard’s 863rd Military Police Company, was shot Wednesday afternoon alongside Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was in what authorities described as a targeted attack just blocks from the White House. Sergeant Wolfe remained in critical condition Thursday, according to officials.
The suspect, identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, was in custody after being badly wounded during the attack. Federal prosecutors charged him with three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said that if either Guard member died, Lakanwal would face first-degree murder charges.
The Attack
The shooting occurred around 2:15 p.m. Wednesday near the Farragut West Metro station at 17th and I Streets NW, just steps from Lafayette Square and the White House. According to Pirro, Lakanwal used a .357 revolver to ambush the two Guard members, shooting one soldier, firing again after the soldier fell to the ground, and then turning to fire on the second soldier.
Other National Guard troops on site shot and subdued Lakanwal, who was hospitalized and remains in custody.
Witnesses described hearing a short burst of gunfire followed by a longer barrage. Stacey Walters, 43, a Washington nurse, was riding in an Uber when she heard two gunshots and watched as small children were rushed to safety.
“I wanted to cry,” Walters said. “I’ve never been so close to something like that, let alone at the holidays.”
The Victims
U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, of Summersville, West Virginia, began her service on June 6, 2023, and was assigned to the 863rd Military Police Company, 111th Engineer Brigade of the West Virginia Army National Guard. She had been deployed to Washington since August as part of President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to the capital.
Beckstrom’s family spent Thanksgiving at her bedside, saying goodbye. Her father, Gary Beckstrom, said Thursday morning that his daughter had a “mortal wound” and was unlikely to recover.
“I’m holding her hand right now,” he said. “She has a mortal wound. It’s not going to be a recovery.”
Adam Carr, Beckstrom’s former boyfriend, described her as “caring and tenderhearted.” He said she joined the National Guard because she dreamed of having a career in the FBI. Beckstrom enjoyed nature, road trips, and being with her family.
“As long as she was with people who cared about her, she was having a good time,” Carr said.
Beckstrom was not initially excited about the Washington deployment, Carr said, and encountered people unhappy with the Guard’s presence in the capital. But eventually, she grew to enjoy her time there, visiting museums and walking along the memorials.
U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, of Martinsburg, West Virginia, entered the service on February 5, 2019, and was assigned to the Force Support Squadron, 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard. He had also been deployed to Washington since August.
A man at Sergeant Wolfe’s family home told reporters Thursday: “All we need right now are prayers for my son.” He declined to speak further.
Brooke Davison, a friend of Wolfe’s, said they met in a cornhole league several years ago. He never expressed concern for his safety in Washington, she said, and had promised to tell her about his time when he returned.
“Andy is easily one of the strongest, determined and God-fearing men I know,” Davison said. “I have no doubt he has the willpower in him to come out on top of this.”
West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey confirmed Beckstrom’s death Thursday evening. “This is not the result we hoped for, but it is the result we all feared,” he wrote on social media. “Sarah served with courage, extraordinary resolve, and an unwavering sense of duty.”
The Suspect and Investigation
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, had driven across the country from Bellingham, Washington, to carry out the attack, officials said. He lived in Bellingham with his wife and five children.
Lakanwal entered the United States in September 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era immigration program for Afghans fleeing the Taliban takeover. He had worked with a CIA-backed paramilitary force known as a “Zero Unit” in Afghanistan’s southern province of Kandahar, according to Afghan and U.S. officials.
Lakanwal received asylum from the U.S. government in April 2025, according to three people with knowledge of the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
FBI Director Kash Patel said investigators were executing search warrants in Washington, D.C., and multiple locations on the West Coast, including Bellingham. Overnight, FBI agents searched an apartment complex in Bellingham where Lakanwal had been living. One neighbor, Rachael Haycox, said agents pulled a man from a unit around 3 a.m., pushed him against the wall, and restrained him. The search lasted about two hours and involved a drone and a wheeled robot.
A childhood friend of Lakanwal’s, who asked to be identified only as Muhammad because he feared Taliban reprisals, said Lakanwal had suffered from mental health issues and was disturbed by the casualties his unit had caused in Afghanistan.
“He would tell our friends and me that their military operations were very tough, their job was very difficult, and they were under a lot of pressure,” Muhammad said. “When he saw blood, bodies, and the wounded, he could not tolerate it, and it put a lot of pressure on his mind, even if they were from the enemies.“
Muhammad said he last spoke with Lakanwal in 2023, when he appeared to have settled in well in the United States with his wife and children.
Zero Units and CIA Connection
The Zero Units, formerly known as Counterterrorism Pursuit Teams, were trained to conduct night raids and clandestine missions across Afghanistan during the U.S. war. By the time the United States withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021, the units had officially become part of the Afghan intelligence service and included thousands of members.
Lakanwal was assigned to the 03 unit, responsible for operations around Kandahar and beyond, according to an Afghan intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The units were largely recruited, trained, equipped, and overseen by the CIA, according to Human Rights Watch. U.S. Special Operations forces working with the CIA also provided ground support and intelligence during operations. Afghan officials told The New York Times in 2021 that the units’ salaries were paid by the CIA.
However, the units also had a reputation for ruthlessness, with journalists and human rights groups referring to them as “death squads.” In a 2019 report, Human Rights Watch documented several instances in which the strike forces were responsible for “extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances, indiscriminate airstrikes, attacks on medical facilities, and other violations of international humanitarian law.”
CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that Lakanwal “should have never been allowed to come here,” adding that “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, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar.”
Trump Administration Response
President Trump described the attack as an “act of terror” and “a crime against humanity” in a video statement Wednesday night. He called Lakanwal an “animal” who shot the Guard members “at point-blank range in a monstrous, ambush-style attack just steps away from the White House.”
Trump used the shooting to launch a broadside against immigration, saying it “underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation.” He vowed to redouble his mass deportation efforts and called for a sweeping re-examination of immigrants from Afghanistan and other countries.
“We must now re-examine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan,” Trump said. He described Afghanistan as “a hellhole on earth” and warned about Somali refugees in Minnesota.
When asked whether his administration had granted Lakanwal’s asylum request in April, Trump deflected: “When it comes to asylum, when they’re flown in, it’s very hard to get them out. No matter how you want to do it, it’s very hard to get them out, but we’re going to be getting them all out now.”
Trump ordered 500 more National Guard troops to Washington, in addition to about 2,000 already there, though it was unclear when they would arrive or where they would come from.
Attorney General Pam Bondi said Thursday that she would seek the death penalty against Lakanwal. She added in an interview on Fox News that both Guard members “came through surgery” but declined to discuss their precise conditions. One of them, Bondi said, had volunteered to work on Wednesday and on Thanksgiving so other people could spend the day with their families.
Immigration Policy Changes
Hours after the shooting, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced it would pause processing all immigration requests from Afghan nationals. On Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security said it had begun a review of asylum cases approved under the Biden administration.
Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, said on social media that the agency would undertake a “rigorous re-examination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” referring to the 19 countries from which travel is currently restricted, including Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, Haiti, and Venezuela.
Tricia McLaughlin, a Homeland Security Department spokeswoman, accused the previous administration of failing to vet applicants “on a massive scale.”
The immigration pause will affect Afghan nationals trying to remain in the United States by seeking asylum or obtaining a green card. It will also affect Afghans who helped the U.S. government during the 20-year war in Afghanistan and had applied to be relocated through the Special Immigrant Visa program.
“The S.I.V. program was one of the few remaining pathways” for Afghans seeking a way out of their country, said Mevlüde Akay Alp, a senior staff attorney at the International Refugee Assistance Project. “And it’s unsure if even this will continue.”
Afghan Community Reaction
The sweeping pronouncements on immigration left many recent Afghan immigrants shaken and anxious.
“It was very shocking, sad news for us last night,” said Toryalai Takal, 40, who worked with the U.S. government as an air traffic controller at Kabul International Airport and was evacuated in September 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome. He resettled in Bristol, Virginia, where his wife and children later joined him.
“Now the actions of one individual are affecting my legal status, and it’s causing anxiety for every family and every individual who left Afghanistan,” Takal said. “One person, and now an entire community will pay for that?”
Amina Aimaq, 27, who came to the United States in September 2023 and settled in Houston, said: “The biggest uncertainty for me now is around my immigration status. And I worry about how this tragedy will affect all of the Afghans living across the United States who are simply trying to rebuild their lives and make positive contributions to their communities here.”
Zarlasht Sarmast, 27, who arrived in October 2023 and now works as a program coordinator at Bard College, said the shooting was horrible but that the reaction should not be applied to an entire country.
“It’s very disrespectful to people like me who are working hard, and we just want to live a normal life,” she said. “It makes us feel like no matter how hard we try to represent our country and culture in a better way, these kinds of ideologies will never change.”
Shawn VanDiver, president of #AfghanEvac, an advocacy group for Afghan nationals brought to the United States, said the Trump administration was “capitalizing” on the shooting to punish members of the Afghan community who fought beside U.S. troops against the Taliban. He called the review of approved asylum petitions “a political stunt.”
Deployment Controversy
The shooting occurred amid a monthslong legal battle over President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington and other cities as part of what his administration described as a crackdown on crime.
Last week, federal Judge Jia M. Cobb ruled that the deployment was likely illegal, finding that it violated the city’s rights to self-governance and limits on the president’s authority to assert total control over the local D.C. National Guard. The judge temporarily suspended the deployment but stayed her order until December 11, allowing time for the administration to remove the troops or appeal. The Justice Department appealed and sought emergency relief on Wednesday after the shooting.
Internal directives distributed to National Guard troops in Washington in August warned that troops were in a “heightened threat environment” and that “nefarious threat actors engaging in grievance-based violence, and those inspired by foreign terrorist organizations” might view the mission “as a target of opportunity.”
“Additionally, civilian populations with varying political views may attempt to engage,” one memo instructed troops on August 28.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been outspoken in her disapproval of the deployment, said at a news conference: “These young people should be at home in West Virginia with their families.”
Washington, D.C.’s Mayor Muriel Bowser has failed at her job and has been an utter disgrace to the country. She is pro-criminal and anti-Law & Order, a true walking disaster.
D.C.’s Crime Record Under Bowser
Mayor Bowser’s criticism of the National Guard deployment has drawn sharp rebuke from those who point to the District’s persistent crime crisis under her leadership. While the mayor has suggested the Guard members never should have been deployed to Washington, critics argue her administration’s failure to maintain public safety left President Trump with no choice but to intervene.
Washington, D.C.’s overall crime rate is more than double the national average. Though violent crime dropped 35% from 2023 to 2024—reaching what the U.S. Attorney’s office called a 30-year low—the District continues to rank among the nation’s most dangerous cities. D.C. ranks around 4th or 5th nationally in homicide rate and 7th for overall violent crime rate, often performing worse than cities like Memphis, Baltimore, and Detroit.
The statistics paint a troubling picture:
- 29,348 crimes were reported in Washington, D.C. last year, including 3,469 violent offenses, 1,026 assaults with a dangerous weapon, 2,113 robberies, and 5,139 motor vehicle thefts.
- So far in 2025, there have been nearly 1,600 violent crimes and nearly 16,000 total crimes reported.
- There have been nearly 100 homicides in 2025, including the fatal shootings of innocent civilians like three-year-old Honesty Cheadle and 21-year-old Capitol Hill intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym.
- Vehicle theft in Washington, D.C. is more than three times the national average, ranking it among the most dangerous cities in the world for auto theft.
- Carjackings increased 547% between 2018 and 2023. In 2024, there were triple the number of carjackings compared to 2018.
These statistics likely significantly understate the level of crime in Washington, D.C. Metro Police Department leadership have been accused of manipulating crime statistics to appear more favorable. Many residents don’t feel safe reporting crime, and more than half of all violent crime in the U.S. goes unreported in the first place.
WUSA-TV reported: “D.C. residents voice frustration over rising violence, questioning police stats and demanding real action to make neighborhoods feel safe again.”
Given this record, Trump administration officials have argued that the mayor has forfeited her authority to dictate how the District is protected. The deployment, they contend, was a necessary federal intervention to address a local government’s failure to maintain order and protect both residents and federal personnel in the nation’s capital.
Key Takeaways
- Fatal Attack: U.S. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died Thursday from injuries sustained in Wednesday’s ambush shooting near the White House. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remained in critical condition.
- Suspect Background: Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, an Afghan national who worked with a CIA-backed paramilitary “Zero Unit” in Afghanistan, was charged with assault with intent to kill and faces potential first-degree murder charges.
- Immigration Status: Lakanwal entered the U.S. in September 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome and received asylum in April 2025 under the Trump administration.
- Policy Response: The Trump administration paused all immigration applications from Afghan nationals and announced a review of all asylum cases approved under the Biden administration, as well as a re-examination of green cards from 19 “countries of concern.”
- Deployment Debate: The shooting intensified the legal and political debate over President Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Washington, which a federal judge ruled likely illegal last week.
Bad Dawg Sports Newsletter
Get the latest news across the globe, including breaking sports stories, for just $12.50/year, which is a steal given the content available.
#MilitaryLife #Military #BreakingNews
Discover more from Bad Dawg Sports - Global Sports Coverage & Analysis
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
