UNITED States (US) President Donald Trump has described the shooting of two National Guard members near the White House on Wednesday as “an act of evil, an act of hatred, and an act of terror.”
He vowed that his administration would re-examine all Afghans who came to the US during his predecessor, Joe Biden’s presidency.
Trump, who was at his resort in Florida at the time of the attack, released a video statement late Wednesday, after the Secret Service agents had placed the presidential mansion under a security lockdown immediately after the shooting as a precaution.
The shooting unfolded at midday outside a subway station in a bustling commercial area within a few blocks of the White House on Thanksgiving Eve.
The two soldiers, members of the West Virginia National Guard, were on a “high-visibility patrol” outside the entrance to a subway station when the suspect came around the corner, drew a weapon and immediately fired at the pair, Carroll said.
After an exchange of gunfire, other National Guard troops subdued the suspect. He was injured in a gunfight before his arrest and was identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national.
The DHS reported that Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden-era initiative aimed at resettling thousands of Afghans who aided the US during the Afghanistan war and faced potential reprisals from the Taliban after they took control following the American withdrawal.
In response to the shooting, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the president had asked to send another 500 National Guard troops to join the more than 2,000 Guard soldiers previously mobilised in the nation’s capital.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has clashed openly with Trump over the deployment of Guard troops in her city, told reporters hours after the incident, “this is a targeted shooting.”
Executive Assistant Chief of the Washington Metropolitan Police Department, Jeff Carroll, said the two Guard soldiers were ‘ambushed’ and the assailant appeared to have acted alone.
Meanwhile, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services later announced that it had indefinitely paused the processing of all immigration applications for Afghan nationals, citing a need to review security and vetting procedures.
Wednesday’s shooting came five days after a federal judge issued a ruling to temporarily block National Guard troops from performing law enforcement duties in the district without the mayor’s approval, but the judge paused the effect of her order until December to allow an appeal from the Trump administration.
Trump said in August he was ordering the National Guard deployment to fight crime in a city he said had become unsafe, despite objections from District of Columbia officials who challenged the move in court as an infringement on local government control.
Trump, a Republican, has deployed troops in several other Democratic-led cities, namely Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, Oregon, and Memphis, Tennessee, to combat what he described as lawlessness and violent unrest over his crackdown on illegal immigration.
Democratic leaders of those cities have accused Trump of manufacturing pretexts for militarised shows of force to punish political foes.
The ICIR reported that Trump said last month the American military could deploy ground troops or launch air strikes in Nigeria to halt what he described as the widespread killing of Christians in the West African nation.
He alleged that Christianity faced an existential threat in Nigeria, with thousands of Christians reportedly killed by radical Islamist groups.
Trump warned that the United States could take action including the possibility of military intervention if Nigeria failed to address the issue.
Nigeria was first designated a “Country off Particular Concern” (CPC) by Trump in 2020, but his successor, Biden, removed the country from the list after assuming office.
Reacting to Trump’s latest position on Nigeria, President Bola Tinubu said his country stood firmly as a democracy governed by constitutional guarantees of religious liberty and continued to maintain open engagement with both Christian and Muslim leaders across the country.
Tinubu argued that insecurity is a global crisis that required leaders to cooperate and combat. He said Nigeria remained committed to fighting terrorism, strengthening interfaith harmony, and protecting the lives and rights of all its people.
Nanji is an investigative journalist with the ICIR. She has years of experience in reporting and broadcasting human angle stories, gender inequalities, minority stories, and human rights issues. She has documented sexual war crimes in armed conflict, sex for grades in Nigerian Universities, harmful traditional practices and human trafficking.