Afghan man shoots 2 National Guard soldiers near the White House

Two members of the United States National Guard have been shot near the White House, prompting U.S. President Donald Trump to call for the reexamination of the immigration statuses of all Afghan refugees.

2 blocks from the White House

On Nov. 26, two members of the West Virginia National Guard were attacked by a lone shooter, who was himself shot.

All three men are in critical condition.

The attack, which was described by Jeffrey Carrol, the executive assistant chief of the Washington D.C. police, as an ambush, according to The Washington Post.

Carrol said that the attacker had come “around the corner” and “immediately started firing a firearm”, and was shot several times in return.

It has not yet been confirmed who shot the assailant, but local media reported that other guardsmen in the area responded to the attack quickly.

The BBC reported that the attack occurred about “two blocks” from the White House, or about 500 metres.

Afghan national

The suspect in the shooting has been identified as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national who entered the U.S. as part of the previous U.S. president Joe Biden’s policy of allowing entry to Afghans who had aided the U.S. military, during its two-decade-long occupation.

Biden himself released a statement on social media saying that "violence of any kind is unacceptable", and he and his wife are praying for the service members and their families.

FBI director Kash Patel said that the attack was “targeted”, but it has not been confirmed whether Rahmanuallah intended to attack other targets.

The attack prompted a furious response from Trump, who called the suspect “an animal”, a “foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan, which he called a “hellhole on earth”.

He called the attack “heinous” and an act of hatred and terror.

He blamed the Biden-era policy as the cause of the attack, saying that the attack "underscores the single greatest national security threat facing our nation”.

Trump said that all Afghans who had entered the U.S. as part of Biden’s policy should be "reexamined", saying that “and we must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here or add benefit to our country”.

Additional troops

The National Guard is a type of reserve unit of the U.S. military, and in the past two decades it has been deployed to fight in various conflicts around the world, such as the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

But in the past year, Trump has taken the controversial move of deploying the guard to U.S. cities, ostensibly to fight criminality in those cities.

The cities, which include Washington D.C. and Chicago, are often politically Democratic and usually oppose such deployments.

The crime rate in Washington D.C. has been in decline in recent years, but has more steeply declined since the deployment of the National Guard.

These guardsmen are usually used to patrol the streets of the Capitol.

In reaction to the shooting, Trump has ordered an additional 500 guardsmen to be deployed, adding to a task force of about 2,375 troops.

The attack also occurred on the eve of Thanksgiving, the U.S.’s largest secular national holiday, causing significant disruptions as major roads were shut down, and the Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, a central air travel hub, was briefly shut down.

Top image via AFP