DC shooting suspect one of many disgruntled Afghans brought to US after Biden's botched withdrawal

Rahmanullah Lakanwal has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder charges after being arrested for the killing of West Virginia National Guardsman Sarah Beckstrom in Washington, DC, and critically injuring Guardsman Andrew Wolfe. Now, it's been revealed that Lakanwal, who worked with American military units in Afghanistan, specifically the CIA, is not the only asylumee from that war-torn nation to be angry at the United States.

Lakanwal served in a CIA "Zero Unit" and apparently became disillusioned with America when he came here following the fighting and the nation didn't live up to his expectations. There were many others in "Zero Units" who came to the US after the Afghan Army lost to the Taliban in Afghanistan and who feel angry at not getting the treatment to which they feel they were entitled.

"Many of Lakanwal's 'Zero Unit' fighters have felt similar stress and isolation and despair," NPR reports, "they describe feeling betrayed and abandoned by the CIA after years of that front line, combat service, they expected to be treated with respect in the US, being given the chance to start new lives here."

Of those, NPR writes that "many Afghan fighters who served in 'Zero Units' led by the CIA found themselves spiraling into despair because of what they saw as bureaucratic neglect and abandonment by the U.S. government." It has been difficult for them to find their footing in America.

A translator spoke to NPR about his experience and that of the men who came to the US after the Biden administration's withdrawal in August 2021. Davud, who said he worked in a "Zero Unit" for twenty years, said that he and others who were evacuated by the US to save them from the Taliban "feel abandoned" by the CIA now that they are here.
 

"It's that feeling of like you did something that nobody is appreciating," he told NPR. "That promise that was given to you by your employer was a fake promise." He "now believes the agency failed to help his comrades navigate America's complex immigration system."

Davud said that some of those with whom he served killed themselves. His life was saved in Afghanistan by a CIA agent Geeta Bakshi. A former CIA agent told NPR that those Afghan fighters "were out on the front, so that American personnel didn't have to be. They were the ones facing the maximum danger on the battlefield."

Concerns have been immigration delays and work authorization, which began under the Biden administration, said the former agent. Afghan fighters in the US have had trouble navigating the bureaucracy of the federal government. Lakanwal applied for asylum and was granted it before he allegedly opened fire on National Guardsmen in the nation's capital. 

The murder of a National Guardsman and the injuring of another has led the Trump administration to pause all asylum cases from Afghanistan. CIA director John Ratcliffe said that Lakanwal, "and so many others, should never have been allowed to come here."

His counterpart at the FBI, Kash Patel, agrees, saying that the Biden administration did not properly vet "in any way, shape or form this individual and countless others." The interpreter NPR interviewed disagreed, saying, "We were all vetted." This vetting, he said, included interviews and polygraph tests. 

Afghan asylum seekers in Europe have also perpetrated violence. In Munich, a 24-year-old Afghan asylum seeker plowed a car into a crowd, killing a mother and her child, injuring nearly 30 people. His claim had been denied. In October, an Afghan migrant murdered two people, including a toddler, in a German park. The migrant had targeted a group of children in a daycare group. The killer was deemed "not criminally responsible" for the murders and prosecutors are seeking mental health treatment.

The United States Armed Forces went into Afghanistan in 2001 to dismantle Al-Qaeda over the 9/11 terrorist attacks and to fight the Taliban, the ruling group that harbored the terrorists. America left in 2021 without having achieved its goal, leaving behind millions of dollars in military equipment, nearly 2,500 Americans dead, over 20,000 wounded, and ceding the nation back to the Taliban. Some 200,000 Afghans were welcomed into the United States following the cessation of fighting.