The shooting of two National Guard members in Washington last week has taken a jarring new turn, and the emerging theory about the gunman’s motive points to a far deeper national security threat.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the 29-year-old Afghan national accused of killing Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom and critically wounding Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, had served alongside U.S. forces in Afghanistan before Joe Biden’s botched withdrawal. If you’ve been wondering why someone who once helped American troops would suddenly target National Guardsmen, you’re not the only one asking that question. Federal investigators now believe the Taliban may have blackmailed Lakanwal into carrying out the attack.
“U.S. intelligence is investigating information that a Taliban hit squad threatened to murder Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s family in Afghanistan unless he opened fire on American troops in the nation’s capital,” reports the Daily Beast. “But investigators are asking themselves why a man who was vetted by two administrations, and with no criminal record and no history of extremism, should drive across the country on an apparent suicide mission to shoot at heavily armed U.S. military personnel with a revolver.”
One line of inquiry they are seriously pursuing, according to sources with knowledge of the investigation, is that Lakanwal was made an offer he could not refuse. Either he accepted the mission, or his family in Afghanistan would be beaten, murdered, and possibly beheaded.
Lakanwal was a member of the Afghan Scorpion Forces working closely with the CIA as a GPS tracking specialist. He helped the U.S. military escape from Kabul in the shambolic retreat from Afghanistan in August 2021. Between August 14 and 30, more than 123,000 people were airlifted from Kabul Airport. The Afghan fighter joined one of the last flights because he served the United States and due to the danger he would be in if he were left behind.
About 700 Scorpion Forces members are understood to be detained in Afghanistan because they worked with America and its allies.
According to the report, the fallout from Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan is still unfolding. In the five years since the pullout, a Taliban military unit known as Yarmouk 60 has been hunting down—and in many cases killing—Afghans who worked with the United States and its allies. Earlier this year, a member of the “Afghan Triples,” an elite special forces unit created and backed by the U.K. to fight the Taliban, escaped to Germany in hopes of bringing his family to safety. Yarmouk 60 responded by murdering his wife and father, along with four of his children, including two young girls who were beheaded.
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