Two National Guard soldiers are critically injured after being gunned down in Washington DC, less than two blocks from the White House, in what the city’s mayor called a “targeted shooting”.
Police said a lone suspect opened fire on two National Guard members from West Virginia on Wednesday afternoon, before being subdued by other National Guard nearby who had heard the gunfire.
President Donald Trump, who was in Florida at the time, said the alleged gunman was an Afghan national who entered the US in September 2021.
He vowed that his administration would ensure the suspect “pays the steepest possible price” for the “act of terror”.
Multiple law enforcement sources earlier identified the alleged gunman to the BBC’s US partner CBS as Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national.
“We must now re-examine every alien who has entered our country from Afghanistan under [former President Joe] Biden,” said Trump in a live address on Wednesday night.
A statement from Joint Task Force DC, which is overseeing the National Guard deployments to the nation’s capital, said the attack took place at around 14:15 EST (17:15 GMT) on Wednesday near the Farragut Square Metro Station.
The soldiers were on a high-visibility patrol near the corner of 17th and I streets, a busy lunch spot for office workers.
FBI Director Kash Patel – whose agency is leading the investigation – told a news conference the soldiers were “brazenly attacked in a horrendous act of violence”.
Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Jeff Carroll said the suspect “came around the corner” and “immediately started firing a firearm”.
He said the soldiers had been “ambushed”.
Other National Guard members nearby heard the gunfire and responded, he said.
“They actually were able to intervene and to kind of hold down the suspect, after he had been shot, on the ground until law enforcement got there within moments,” Carroll said.
The suspect was shot four times, law enforcement sources told CBS.
