Before Rahmanullah Lakanwal settled in a quiet area of Washington state, he was part of a secret unit of Afghans operating under the direction of the CIA and hunting down Taliban commanders on very dangerous missions.
“They took evil actors off the battlefield and saved American lives, period,” said Andrew Sullivan, who served as an officer in 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 scrutinized Afghans who worked with U.S. forces. CIA agents praised their bravery, skill and loyalty, and the agency prioritized their evacuation from Afghanistan after the fall of Kabul in 2021 because they were prime targets of the Taliban.
But since arriving in the United States, thousands of these Afghan veterans have lived in legal limbo without work permits, struggling to feed their families, according to refugee advocates. His former military and CIA colleagues called on the Biden and Trump administrations and Congress to take action to resolve their legal status, warning that the lack of progress was driving some veterans to desperation, advocates said.
Lakanwal, 29, is accused of driving across the country and shooting two National Guard members near the White House last week, killing Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and seriously wounding Andrew Wolfe, 24. The suspect, who was shot and wounded during the attack, will face charges of first-degree murder and other crimes, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said.
Authorities have not provided a motive for the shooting, and a relative of Lakanwal has said the family cannot understand why a man who fought alongside the Americans in Afghanistan could have carried out such an attack.
“I need your help to find out why this happened,” the relative told NBC News last week, his voice breaking with emotion.
In the wake of the shooting, President Donald Trump called for a full review of all Afghans admitted to the country and the suspension of processing any immigration applications from Afghans seeking resettlement in the United States. Some administration officials have claimed, without evidence, that the Biden administration did not vet Lakanwal.
But Lakanwal, as a member of the CIA-trained strike force, would have been subjected to extensive vetting before joining Unit Zero and also to regular security checks during his tenure, former military and intelligence 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, several officials said, when he applied for asylum, which he was granted in April during the Trump administration.
White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson on Saturday blamed Trump’s predecessor.
“This animal would never have been here if it weren’t for Joe Biden’s dangerous policies that allowed countless uninvestigated 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 thorough investigation cannot guarantee that a person will never resort to violence.
“Vetting can help mitigate threats, but it doesn’t eliminate them,” said Geeta Bakshi, a former CIA officer who served in Afghanistan and now runs FAMIL, a nonprofit that helps members of Zero Units. “It is difficult to say what motivated this individual to act in such a violent and horrific manner. You never know what is going on in someone’s head or why they change their way of thinking.”
He added: “I understand that the FBI is conducting a very thorough investigation to arrive at these answers; we look forward to supporting them in their efforts.”
Calls for help
The veterans of Units Zero participated in intense combat. Many saw friends killed on the battlefield and some suffered serious injuries.
Like their American counterparts in special operations forces, they continue to deal with the effects of war trauma. His legal difficulties in the United States have only exacerbated his mental health problems, according to former intelligence officers and military veterans.
“If you bring people here and don’t let them feel that there is hope, you are leaving them in a very worrying situation,” said a spokesman for the 1208 Foundation, a nonprofit that provides assistance to Afghans who worked with US Special Forces.
“Americans now view these people as if they are pariahs, but they actually potentially offer a huge advantage to the United States if we use them correctly,” he said, referring to how valuable Force Zero veterans could be in security jobs.
Lakanwal, who grew up in Khost province, lived in Bellingham, Washington, with his wife and five children, the relative said.
Last summer, he worked for Amazon Flex, an Amazon-run service where people use their own vehicles to make deliveries as contract workers. But it had not been active recently, an Amazon spokesperson said.
Two years ago, a former Afghan commander of Zero Units, Mohammad Shah, wrote a letter warning lawmakers that his former troops were in an “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 feeling of helplessness we feel when the US government ignores our requests for immigration assistance,” Shah added.
During the war, multiple human rights organizations alleged that Zero Unit troops committed abuses and possible war crimes, including extrajudicial executions, in part due to faulty intelligence. A Human Rights Watch report reported 14 incidents of serious abuse between 2017 and 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 Washington hosted by the group FAMIL that featured speeches by Republican Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and former military and CIA officials.
“The Zero Units were the cream of the crop. They were at the top of the top 1%,” Mullin said in a video posted by FAMIL.
The proposed bipartisan legislation, the Afghan Adjustment Act, would have ended legal uncertainty for Unit Zero veterans and all other Afghans who worked for the U.S. government during the war. The bill, which was supported by military veterans in Congress, also called for additional security screening for Afghan refugees seeking permanent legal status. But despite several attempts over the past four years, Congress never adopted the proposal.
Aside from members of Zero Units, tens of thousands of Afghans who worked for the US government in Afghanistan still face legal uncertainty. Many have sought asylum while waiting for their applications for special immigrant visas to be processed.
In July, about 3,000 members of the Zero Units still did not have work permits or certainty about their legal status, according to advocates who work with veterans. Returning to Afghanistan is not an option for them, advocates say, because of the threat of being persecuted by the Taliban for working with the Americans.
During his first term, Trump agreed to a deal that called for the departure of all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and Biden decided to carry out the deal after delaying departure day for several months. Since then, Trump has repeatedly criticized his predecessor for the way the US withdrawal from Afghanistan was handled.
In July of this year, 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 being asked a question about Afghan refugees. “We are going to take care of those people, those who did a job [for us]those who told them certain things.”
