The Afghan man accused of shooting two members of the US military in downtown Washington DC once worked alongside the CIA in Afghanistan, officials have said.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal drove thousands of miles from the west coast to launch an “ambush-style” attack on two West Virginia members of the National Guard on Wednesday afternoon, authorities said.
He shot Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolfe, 24, at close range just a few blocks from the White House, officials said, and they both remain in a critical condition in hospital.
Mr Lakanwal came to the US in 2021 under a programme that offered special immigration protections to Afghans in the wake of America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He helped guard US forces at Kabul airport as thousands scrambled to escape Afghanistan before the Taliban took power, a former military commander who served alongside him told the BBC.
The father of five had been recruited to Unit 03 of the Kandahar Strike Force, nine years earlier.
His unit was known locally as Scorpion Forces, operating initially under the CIA but eventually for the Afghan intelligence department known as the National Directorate of Security.
Mr Lakanwal was a GPS tracker specialist, the former commander told the BBC, describing him as a “sporty and jolly character”.
His whole unit was moved from Kandahar to Kabul five days before the Taliban entered the capital. They continued to protect the airport for another six days, before they too were airlifted out to the US.
At a press conference on Thursday, FBI Director Kash Patel confirmed Mr Lakanwal’s connection to US forces, saying the suspect “had a relationship in Afghanistan with partner forces”, before moving to the US.
I don’t think that it’s that crazy to say that this was planned by the CIA.
But that could just be complete paranoïa.
Or that these people are just dropped once they arrive in the USA.
Here’s my theory: I think there’s a lot of things the CIA has always done to influence public opinion in the U.S. and abroad, and they’ve never been above doing some fucked up and unethical things to manipulate the public.
I guess around the time of the patriot act, the president was given the power to pick who leads the CIA during their presidential term (which seems like an all around terrible fucking idea, and it’s kind of crazy we don’t talk about this more often).
So while you’ve always had the CIA doing the kind of stuff we’re seeing them do currently in the U.S. and in Venezuela, for the last ~25 years, it was happening under leadership with fluctuating levels of competency reflective of the president. Maybe it’s just because this guy looks so much like him, but I just keep thinking Trump seems to have placed Michael Scott in charge of directing the CIA.
It’s definitely not that I think Trump is the first president/Ratcliffe is the first CIA director, willing to do some really unethical and harmful things to innocent people as part of a larger political strategy.
It’s just that subtlety is not a strength of anyone working in this administration. You have the hubris and unchecked authority of the Trump administration working with the hubris and unchecked authority of the CIA, and there’s nobody around to pump the brakes and suggest that maybe you tone it down a bit because you’re being way too obvious.
Once you’re on the farm, you’re never off it
There is a good video of a real footage of a person who gets stopped by police in America who is one of these people that used to work in Afghanistan for Americans and such and then to keep them safe from their local governments they flee their country to find safety in America with all the promises from US to provide for them and their family just to be abandoned once they arrive.
I advice to watch it to see where the cases like this are coming from and what’s their motive. I don’t justify shootings or killings, it just opens the perspective on why it is happening.
So depending on his motives this is either a redemption arc or on brand for him.
I don’t know about him, but I tend to believe it’s on brand for the CIA’s motives.
The CIA has destabilized democracies and taken power of many other countries on behalf of wealthy individuals, in the name of “promoting democracy.” I guess it could possibly be America’s chance at something like a redemption arc if we’re not too dumb to recognize our own playbook.
If we are too dumb, then probably no need to think about it too much for now. There’s always a plan in place, and they’ll make sure you know when they need you. For example, for now they probably just need you to go along/agree with or recite something along the lines of:
“This is an outrage to every patriot and that guy clearly proves all immigrants hate America. This incident also proves why we need to normalize military on every American street. This country is a war zone over run with terrorists seeking to harm other Americans. This is also why Antifa has to be designated a terrorist organization, and why Americans need to understand losing their own civil liberties are the cost that they have to pay for the greater good. He who gives up liberty for safety… will eventually forget this was supposed to be a temporary thing.”
With all his experience I’m genuinely surprised he only managed to kill one guard.
Probably realized the CIA is an enemy.
Or he figured it was just a continuation of the same line of work he previously did for the CIA.
For such a ridiculously inefficient operation, wouldn’t be surprised if his family was threatened or something…
Yeah, I kind of have the same suspicion.
They really do be throwing the coup.
How odd. Some people might even wonder if that’s almost too much of a coincidence, but the CIA director (chosen by executive nomination btw) has cleared that up for us, so I won’t make any wild speculations fueled by conspiracy theories.
“The Biden Administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the US Government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement to CBS.
Since Trump took office on January 20th, Ratcliffe has been very quick to get ahead of any wild conspiracy theories before the narrative could spin out of control.
The CIA on Saturday offered a new assessment on the origin of the Covid outbreak, saying the coronavirus is “more likely” to have leaked from a Chinese lab than to have come from animals.But the intelligence agency cautioned it had “low confidence” in this determination. A spokesperson said that a “research-related origin” of the pandemic “is more likely than a natural origin based on the available body of reporting”. The decision to release that assessment marks one of the first made by the CIA’s new director John Ratcliffe, appointed by Donald Trump, who took over the agency on Thursday. Ratcliffe, who served as director of national intelligence during President Trump’s first term, has long favoured the lab leak theory, claiming Covid most likely came from a leak at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
He was 15 when recruited in.
Here is the other side of these shootings, the one that government doesn’t tell you about.
Coming straight from the people like the recent one. If you watch the full video you can realise what pushes them to act like that.
And? Military people are nut jobs.
