Two US National Guard soldiers were critically wounded on Wednesday after being shot in a brazen daytime attack a few blocks from the White House, with US President Donald Trump terming the incident an \u201cact of terror\u201d.<\/p>\n
The incident, which left two Guard members critically wounded, was \u201can act of evil, an act of hatred and an act of terror,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a crime against our entire nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
He confirmed that the man taken into custody after the daylight shooting two blocks from the White House was \u201ca foreigner who entered our country from Afghanistan\u201d.<\/p>\n
The suspect had arrived in the United States in 2021 \u201con those infamous flights,\u201d Trump said, referring to the evacuations of Afghans fleeing as the Taliban took over the country in the wake of the US retreat after 20 years of war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must now reexamine every single alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan\u201d under former president Joe Biden, Trump said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe must take all necessary measures to ensure the removal of any alien from any country who does not belong here, or add benefit to our country if they can\u2019t love our country, we don\u2019t want them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Department of Homeland Security identified the suspect as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan national. According to CNN, the suspect applied for asylum in 2024, which was granted by the Trump administration in April 2025.<\/p>\n
Separately, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said it had stopped processing all immigration requests relating to Afghan nationals indefinitely.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe protection and safety of our homeland and of the American people remains our singular focus and mission,\u201d the US Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a post on X.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the incident, former US president Barack Obama said \u201cviolence has no place in America\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cMichelle and I are praying for the servicemembers shot in Washington, DC today, and send our love to their families as they enter this holiday season under the most tragic of circumstances,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u2018Targeted shooting\u2019
\nTrump was in Florida at the time of the attack, which prompted the White House to go into lockdown as law enforcement from multiple federal and city agencies swarmed the area.<\/p>\n
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser called it \u201ca targeted shooting\u201d by a single assailant.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat individual has been taken into custody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The shooting occurred around 2:15 pm local time, when the two soldiers \u2014 a man and a woman \u2014 were conducting what authorities described as a \u201chigh-visibility patrol\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to DC Police Executive Assistant Chief Jeffrey Carroll, the attacker rounded a corner, raised a firearm, and \u201cambushed these members of the National Guard\u201d without warning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Two US National Guard soldiers were critically wounded on Wednesday after being shot in a brazen daytime attack a few blocks from the White House, with US President Donald Trump terming the incident an \u201cact of terror\u201d. The incident, which left two Guard members critically wounded, was \u201can act of evil, an act of hatred […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13649"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13651,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13649\/revisions\/13651"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}