On Wednesday, November 26, 2025, two West Virginia National Guard members were ambushed and shot just two blocks from the White House, an act that sent shockwaves through a city that is supposed to be sacrosanct and protected. The troops were rushed to hospitals in critical condition after a brazen daylight attack that forced a massive federal and local law-enforcement response to secure the area and evacuate bystanders. This was not a random neighborhood shooting — it was an assault on our uniformed defenders, and the American people deserve straight answers about how it happened.
Law enforcement quickly identified the suspect as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome and had been living in Washington state. Reports say the man drove across the country and carried out what officials described as a targeted ambush on newly deployed guardsmen, raising urgent questions about vetting and placement of those admitted en masse during the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. The ordinary people watching this unfold don’t want political excuses — they want accountability and a thorough investigation into how this individual was allowed into our communities.
Even more troubling are confirmations from intelligence officials that the suspect had worked with CIA-backed partner forces in Afghanistan before coming to America, a detail that turns this tragedy into a national-security fiasco and makes the CIA’s role impossible to ignore. If the man had operational ties to U.S.-backed units overseas, Americans have every right to demand a clear accounting from the agency that supported and later vouched for him. There can be no “move on” from this until the public gets straight, unvarnished answers about what was known and when it was known.
The federal response was swift but belated: U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services immediately paused processing of Afghan immigration requests pending a review, and the president ordered additional National Guard troops into the city to protect citizens and federal property. Those are sensible stopgaps, but they shouldn’t be a cover for finger-pointing alone — we need reforms to vetting, admission programs, and the bureaucratic processes that allowed dangerous gaps to exist. Americans expect our leaders to secure the homeland first, not spend their time debating narratives while our soldiers lie in hospitals.
On cable today, retired Brig. Gen. Blaine Holt and Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer warned exactly what every patriotic American was thinking: the “deep state” and the intelligence community have uncomfortable questions to answer about their role in admitting and handling personnel who worked with U.S. forces overseas. Whether you call it swamp rot or institutional failure, the bottom line is the same — agencies that operate in the shadows must be held to public standards when their actions put Americans at risk. If retired officers who served honorably are demanding scrutiny, Congress and the media should stop shielding career bureaucrats and start demanding documents and testimony.
It’s time for more than pious press releases and “thoughts and prayers.” We need immediate congressional hearings, a review of every Afghan admission under the programs of 2021, and an independent probe into how intelligence and immigration agencies coordinated on cases like this one. No one is above oversight — not career spooks, not agency heads, and certainly not the political class that pretended mass resettlement came without national-security tradeoffs. The families of the wounded guardsmen — and every American who expects to walk the streets of our capital without fear — deserve the truth and real fixes.
Patriots don’t panic, but we don’t tolerate incompetence or cover-ups either. Support the troops, demand answers from the CIA and every agency involved, and push our elected leaders to secure the homeland with the same seriousness they show when rhetoric serves their campaigns. This is about law and order, common sense immigration, and the basic duty of government: protect the American people.
