Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday said she will seek the death penalty against the man accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members in Washington, D.C., a day earlier.
“Just pray, everyone pray today for these two soldiers, these two Guardsman and woman,” Bondi said on Fox News. “But if something happens, I will tell you right now, I will tell you early, we will do everything in our power to seek the death penalty against that monster who should not have been in our country.”
The suspect, identified as Rahmanaullah Lakanwal, 29, faces three counts of assault with intent to kill while armed and one count of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence in connection with the shooting, charges that carry up to 15 years in prison.
The charges against Lakanwal could be upgraded to murder if one of the Guard members dies, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said during a Thanksgiving Day press conference.
Pirro added that the man, a Washington state resident, drove across the country. At around 2:15 p.m., he allegedly shot Guard members Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, near the Farragut Square Metro Station in the area of 17th and I streets NW in a “targeted attack.”
Beckstrom, Wolfe and Lakanwal were hospitalized after the shooting, after a Guard member shot the suspect and arrested him. The soldiers remain in critical condition and were still undergoing surgery as of Thursday morning.
President Trump called the shooting “an act of terror,” and FBI Director Kash Patel said at Thursday’s press conference that the incident “is an ongoing investigation of terrorism, make no mistake about it.”
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) added that the alleged shooter previously worked with the agency in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. withdrawal from the nation in 2021 — the same year he immigrated to America. Lakanwal entered the country under the “Operation Allies Welcome” program, which the Biden administration offered to Afghan refugees who worked with U.S. troops during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed Lakanwal’s ties to the agency in a statement on Thursday, but added that he “should have never been allowed to come here.”
“In the wake of the disastrous Biden Withdrawal from Afghanistan, 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, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe said in a statement obtained by NewsNation, The Hill’s sister network.
Trump called on his administration to review the cases of Afghan refugees who fled in 2021 hours after the shooting. Not long after, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration (USCIS) services indefinitely cut off immigration from Afghanistan “pending further review of security and vetting protocols,” the agency said in a post on social platform X.