Before Rahmanullah Lakanwal settled in a quiet part of Washington state, he was part of a secret unit of Afghans who operated under CIA direction and hunted downTaliban commandersin highly dangerous missions.
They "took malignant actors off the battlefield and saved American lives, period," said Andrew Sullivan, who served as an officer with the Army's 1st Division in Afghanistan and is now executive director of No One Left Behind, a nonprofit that helps resettle Afghans who worked for the U.S. military during the war.
These members of "Zero Units," also known as National Strike Units, were among the most extensively vetted of any Afghans who worked with American forces. CIA officers hailed their bravery, skill and loyalty, and the agency prioritized their evacuation from Afghanistan followingthe fall of Kabul in 2021because they were prime targets for the Taliban.
But since arriving in the United States, thousands of these Afghan veterans havelived in a legal limbowithout work permits, struggling to feed their families, according to refugee advocates. Their former CIA and military colleagues appealed to both the Biden and Trump administrations and to Congress to take action to resolve their legal status, warning that the lack of progress was driving some veterans into despair, the advocates said.
Lakanwal, 29, is accused of driving across the country andshooting two National Guard membersnear the White House last week, killing Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically wounding Andrew Wolfe, 24. The suspect, who was shot and wounded during the attack, will face charges of first-degree murder and other offenses, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro has said.
Authorities have not provided a motive for the shooting, anda relative of Lakanwal's has saidthe family cannot fathom why a man who fought alongside Americans in Afghanistan may have carried out such an attack.
"I need your help to know why this happened," the relative told NBC News last week, his voice cracking with emotion.
In the wake of the shooting, President Donald Trump has called for a full review of all Afghans admitted to the country and a halt to processing any immigration requests from Afghans seeking to resettle in the United States. Some administration officials have claimed without evidence that the Biden administration failed to vet Lakanwal.
But Lakanwal, as a member of the CIA-trained strike force, would have undergone extensive vetting before he joined the Zero Unit and also regular security checks during his tenure, former intelligence and military officials said.
The Central Intelligence Agency oversaw the evacuation of Lakanwal and nearly 10,000 members of the force when the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021. Like other refugees, Lakanwal would have been vetted again, multiple officials said, when he applied for asylum, which was granted in April — during the Trump administration.
White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson on Saturday blamed Trump's predecessor.
"This animal would've never been here if not for Joe Biden's dangerous policies which allowed countless unvetted criminals to invade our country and harm the American people," Jackson said in an emailed response to a request for comment.
Former intelligence officers and military veterans who work with refugees say even the most extensive vetting cannot guarantee that a person will never resort to violence.
"Vetting can help mitigate threats, but it doesn't eliminate threats," said Geeta Bakshi, a former CIA officer who worked in Afghanistan and now runs FAMIL, a nonprofit that assists members of the Zero Units. "It's hard to say what motivated this individual to act in such a violent and horrific way. You never know what's going on in someone's head, or why their mindset shifts."
She added: "I understand the FBI is leading a very thorough investigation to get to these answers — we look forward to supporting them in their efforts."
Appeals for help
The veterans of the Zero Units took part in intense combat. Many saw friends killed on the battlefield and some suffered grievous wounds.
Like their American counterparts in special operations forces, they continue to grapple with the effects of their wartime trauma. Their legal difficulties in the U.S. have only aggravated their mental health challenges, according to former intelligence officers and military veterans.
"If you bring people here and you don't let them feel like there is any hope, you're leaving them in a very troubling situation," said a spokesperson for the nonprofit 1208 Foundation, which provides assistance to Afghans who worked with U.S. Special Forces.
"Americans are looking at these people like they're pariahs now, but in reality they potentially offer a major advantage to the U.S. if we use them correctly," he said, referring to how valuable the Zero Force veterans could be in security jobs.
Lakanwal, who grew up in Khost province, was living in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five children, his relative said.
This past summer, he worked for Amazon Flex, a service run by Amazon where people use their own vehicles to make deliveries as contract workers. But he had not been active recently, an Amazon spokesperson said.
Two years ago, a former Afghan commander with the Zero Units, Mohammad Shah, wrote a letter warning lawmakers that his former troops are in "urgent crisis" and that Congress needed to act to resolve their legal status.
"Without your help, we are trapped," Shah wrote.
"Recently, there have been cases of suicide within our community driven by the overwhelming sentiment of helplessness we feel as our requests for immigration assistance go ignored by the U.S. Government," Shah added.
During the war, multiple human rights organizationsalleged the Zero Units troopscommitted abuses and possible war crimes, including extrajudicial executions, partly due to flawed intelligence. A Human Rights Watch report alleged 14 incidents of serious abuses from 2017 to 2019.
Former members of the strike force and former CIA officers who worked with them reject the allegations. They say that the Zero Units were trained in the laws of armed conflict and that each operation was carefully reviewed in advance.
Earlier this month, members of the strike force were honored at an event in Washingtonorganized by the FAMIL groupthat featured speeches by Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and former CIA and military officers.
"The Zero Units were the cream of the crop. They were the top of the top 1%," Mullin saidin a video posted by FAMIL.
Proposed bipartisan legislation, theAfghan Adjustment Act, would haveput an end to the legal uncertaintyfor the Zero Units veterans and all other Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the war. The bill, which was endorsed by military veterans in Congress, also called for additional security vetting for Afghan refugees seeking permanent legal status. But despite several attempts over the past four years, Congress never adopted the proposal.
Apart from the Zero Units members, tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the U.S. government in Afghanistan still face legal uncertainty. Many have applied for asylum while they wait for their applications for special immigrant visas to be processed.
As of July, about 3,000 members of the Zero Units still had no work permits and no certainty about their legal status, according to advocates who work with the veterans. Returning to Afghanistan is not an option for them, advocates say, because of the threatof being hunted down by the Talibanfor working with Americans.
During his first term, Trump agreed to a deal that called for the departure of all American troops from Afghanistan, and Biden decided to carry out the accord after delaying the exit day by several months. Since then, Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor for the way the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled.
This July, Trump suggested that some Afghans deserved to be granted legal status in the United States.
"We know the good ones, and we know the ones that maybe aren't so good," Trump said after he was asked a question aboutAfghan refugees. "We're going to take care of those people, the ones that did a job [for us], the ones that were told certain things."
