Suspect in National Guard attack struggled with ‘periods of dark isolation,’ community member says

The Afghan man accused of gunning down two National Guard members blocks from the White House last week had been unraveling for years, unable to hold a job and flipping between long, lightless stretches of isolation and taking sudden weeks-long cross-country drives. His behavior deteriorated so sharply that a community advocate reached out to a refugee organization for help, fearing he was becoming suicidal.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press reveal mounting warnings about the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an asylum seeker whose erratic conduct raised alarms long before the attack that jolted the nation’s capital on the eve of Thanksgiving. The previously unreported concerns offer the clearest picture yet of how he was struggling in his new life in the United States.

 

Even so, when the community member who works with Afghan families in Washington state saw on the news that Lakanwal was named as the suspect in the National Guard shooting, they said they were stunned, unable to square the violence with the memory of seeing Lakanwal play with his young sons. The person spoke on the condition of anonymity to share undisclosed details while cooperating with the FBI in its investigation.

West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were critically wounded in what officials described as an ambush attack on Wednesday afternoon, and Beckstrom died from her injuries the next day. Investigators are still working to establish a motive for the attack.

Lakanwal, 29, has been charged with first-degree murder.

In Afghanistan, Lakanwal worked in a special Afghan Army unit known as a Zero Unit. The units were backed by the CIA. He entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats.

He resettled with his wife and their five sons, all under the age of 12, in Bellingham, Washington — but struggled, according to the community member, who shared emails that had been sent to the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit group that provides services to refugees.

“Rahmanullah has not been functional as a person, father and provider since March of last year, 03/2023. He quit his job that month, and his behavior has changed greatly,” the person wrote in a January 2024 email.

The emails described a man who was struggling to assimilate, unable to hold a steady job or commit to his English courses while he alternated between “periods of dark isolation and reckless travel.” Sometimes, he spent weeks in his “darkened room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife or older kids.” At one point in 2023, the family faced eviction after months of not paying rent.

The community member said in an interview that they became worried that Lakanwal was so depressed that he would end up harming himself, but they did not see any indication that he would commit violence against another person.

Lakanwal’s family members often resorted to sending his toddler sons into his room to bring him the phone or messages because he would not respond to anyone else, one email stated. A couple of times, when his wife left him with the kids for a week to travel to visit relatives, the children would not be bathed, their clothes would not be changed, and they would not eat well. Their school raised concerns about the situation.

But then, there were “interim” weeks where Lakanwal would try to make amends and “do the right things,” according to the email, re-engaging with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services as was mandated by the terms of his entry into the U.S.

“But that has quickly evolved into ‘manic’ episodes for one or two weeks at a time, where he will take off in the family car, and drive nonstop,” the email outlined. Once, he went to Chicago, and another time, to Arizona.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said this past week that Lakanwal drove across the country from Bellingham, about 80 miles (130 kilometers) north of Seattle, to the nation’s capital to execute his attack.

In response to the two emails, the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants or USCRI, visited Bellingham a few weeks later in March 2024 and attempted to make contact with Lakanwal and his family, according to the community member, who, after not receiving any updates, was left with the impression that he refused their assistance.

A request for comment and clarification from USCRI was not immediately returned.