Charges announced for suspect in DC shooting
Rahmanullah Rakanwal, an Afghan national, has been detained in connection with the shooting death of two West Virginia National Guard soldiers near the White House.
WASHINGTON – The Afghan man accused of shooting and killing a National Guardsman two blocks from the White House last week served with the CIA-backed “Team Zero” in Afghanistan. The unit is a paramilitary group that conducted covert raids against terrorist suspects and enemies of the United States as part of the CIA’s counterterrorism program.
Rahmanullah Rakanwar, 29, who is accused of shooting and killing two West Virginia National Guard soldiers in front of a subway station in downtown Washington, was a member of an elite tactical unit, said Sami Sadat, a former commander of the Afghan Special Operations Command. The group was working with the U.S. military on counterterrorism operations before the Taliban takeover.
A motive for the shooting has not been revealed, but there are reports that he was part of a secret violent unit whose human rights abuses critics have likened to a “death squad” and spurred questions about whether the experience left him with post-traumatic stress disorder.
In response to the shooting, the Trump administration blamed Biden-era immigration policies and refugee programs that brought thousands of Afghans who served in the U.S. military to the country after the country’s 2021 withdrawal.
Lakhanwal entered the country that year through one such program, Operation Welcoming Allies, which brought in nearly 200,000 Afghans.
Lakhanwal was part of an elite US-backed team.
Sadat said Rakanwar was one of the thousands of Afghans who served in the elite tactical unit. Sadat said the unit he belonged to was called NDS 03, or Kandahar Strike Group.
Sadat currently chairs the Afghan United Front, a movement opposed to the Taliban.
According to reports, the Kandahar attack force operated from Camp Gekko, a US military base on the former compound of Taliban founder Mullah Omar.
The CIA acknowledged that Mr. Lakhanwal served for the agency in Afghanistan, but declined to comment on his role or reports of human rights abuses by his unit.
When the Taliban took over after the 20-year US occupation of Afghanistan, the US welcomed the Afghans who had fought alongside the Americans, fearing retaliation from the new regime.
“Following the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the suspected shooter to the United States in September 2021, citing his work with the U.S. government, including the CIA, as part of a partner force in Kandahar, but that operation ended shortly after the chaotic withdrawal,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement.
Mr. Sadat and others familiar with the unit described them as an elite, specialized unit engaged in covert counterterrorism operations that ran parallel to, but separate from, the U.S. military’s main larger mission in Afghanistan.
The first Unit Zero was formed a few months after the September 11, 2001 attacks. At its peak in late 2010 and 2011, Afghanistan averaged 19 attacks each night, according to a report by the Open Society Foundations.
Troop Zero, guided by CIA intelligence and accompanied by U.S. special operations personnel, conducted tactical “night raids” against terrorist suspects and Taliban insurgents.
“These units are extremely highly trained and fought some of the heaviest combat throughout the war,” Mick Mulroy, a former CIA paramilitary operations officer and former assistant secretary of defense, told USA TODAY.
“An entire generation of CIA and military personnel served with them and were integrated into them, and many had their lives saved because of the members of this unit,” Mulroy added. “They were the first to rise and the last to leave Afghanistan.”
Sadat said the force is one of the most effective in fighting the Taliban on the ground. The majority of them came to the United States after the 2021 withdrawal, Sadat said, because they faced extreme risk of being hunted down and killed by the Taliban, who have a special hatred for Zero fighters.
Sean Vandiver, president of Afghanistan Evac, an organization that helps bring Afghan allies to the United States, said Lakanwal first started serving with Unit Zero when he was 15 years old. He said Lakhanwal was likely “exposed to all kinds of trauma” in his position.
Mulroy said the Afghans who served in Unit Zero undergo the “most extensive” screening of any foreign national seeking entry to the United States. This includes U.S. government employment verification, U.S. Embassy approval in Afghanistan, eight database checks, biometric registration and multiple “extensive” in-person interviews, he said.
Sadat said the CIA instructed Unit Zero intelligence agents to carry out raids, usually at night. In some cases, the CIA provided air raid support or even sent drones to back up the raids. They mainly operated in rural areas, he added.
But Sadat said the force’s disregard for the rules of engagement and its “high-handed” attitude toward civilians had “tarnished” its reputation.
This has created intense tensions with the Afghan government, which has been pushing for years to wrest control of the unit from the CIA without success, he said.
“It was like a blame game. The damage was terrible and it made it seem like the Afghan government was not responsible,” he added.
Forces reportedly did not kill hundreds of civilians
Human rights groups and media outlets collected hundreds of civilian casualties and evidence of possible war crimes related to Unit Zero. According to a 2022 ProPublica report, at least 452 civilians were killed in 107 attacks, but that number is likely a significant undercount.
A 2019 Human Rights Watch report documented numerous cases of “summary executions” and “enforced disappearances” carried out by CIA-backed forces. Those killed in the attack included children, elderly women, teachers and construction workers. The report said the force often acted on false information obtained from people with biased motives or whom the public deemed guilty “by association.”
Patricia Gosman, assistant Asia director at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, said local communities live in fear of seemingly arbitrary attacks. She recalled incidents where people were dragged from their homes and shot in the eyes and mouths. The bodies were sometimes left out in the open to leave terrifying messages. In one case, she said, troops stormed a clinic, shot and killed two medical workers, and then dragged a doctor away, who was never seen again.
“We didn’t know when it was going to happen. We didn’t know when we might get shot. It created fear in the public,” Gosman said.
Gosman said residents complained to local authorities, but the investigation was blocked and closed. She added that people were left with no answers and the United States was never held accountable for the “dangerous culture of impunity that accompanies these operations.”
“What’s most concerning is the total lack of transparency,” she said. “There was never any sense that I needed to take responsibility for those actions.”
