Suspect in National Guard attack struggled with ‘dark isolation’ as community raised concerns

The Afghan man accused of shooting dead two National Guard members just blocks from the White House last week had been struggling for years, unable to hold a job and oscillating between long periods of lightless isolation and sudden weeks of traveling across the country. His behavior deteriorated so much that a community advocate sought help from a refugee organization, fearing he might become suicidal.

Emails obtained by The Associated Press reveal growing warnings about the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an asylum seeker whose erratic driving raised alarms well before the attack that rocked the nation’s capital on the eve of Thanksgiving. These previously unreported concerns offer the clearest picture of how he struggled in his new life in the United States.

Even so, when community members who work with Afghan families in Washington state heard on the news that Lakanwal had been named as a suspect in the National Guard shooting, they said they were stunned, unable to reconcile the violence with the memory of seeing Lakanwal play with his young sons. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to share undisclosed details while cooperating with the FBI in its investigation.

West Virginia National Guard Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, was seriously injured in what authorities described as an ambush Wednesday afternoon, and Beckstrom died from her injuries the next day. Investigators are still working to establish the motive for the attack.

Lakanwal, 29, was charged with first-degree murder.

In Afghanistan, Lakanwal worked in a special unit of the Afghan army known as Unit Zero. The units were supported by the CIA. He entered the United States in 2021 as part of Operation Allies Welcome, a program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the United States withdrew from the country, many of whom had worked alongside American troops and diplomats.

He resettled with his wife and their five sons, all under the age of 12, in Bellingham, Washington — but struggled, according to the community member, who shared emails sent to the American Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, a nonprofit group that provides services to refugees.

“Rahmanullah has not been functional as a person, father and provider since March of last year, 03/2023. He left his job that month and his behavior changed significantly,” the person wrote in a January 2024 email.

The emails described a man who struggled to assimilate, unable to hold a steady job or engage in his English classes as he alternated between “periods of bleak isolation and reckless travel.” Sometimes he would spend weeks in his “dark room, not speaking to anyone, not even his wife or older children.” Sometime in 2023, the family was evicted after months of not paying their rent.

The community member said in an interview that they were concerned that Lakanwal was so depressed that he would end up harming himself, but they saw no indication that he would commit violence against another person.

Lakanwal’s family members often sent his young sons to his room to bring him the phone or messages because he wouldn’t respond to anyone else, an email states. On a few occasions, when his wife left him with the children for a week to visit relatives, the children did not take a bath, their clothes were not changed, and they did not eat well. Their school has expressed concerns about the situation.

But then there were “interim” weeks when Lakanwal tried to make amends and “do the right things,” according to the email, reconnecting with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services, as required under the terms of his entry into the United States.

“But this quickly progressed to ‘manic’ episodes for a week or two at a time, where he would take off in the family car and drive non-stop,” the email states. Once he went to Chicago, and another time to Arizona.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., said last week that Lakanwal drove across the country from Bellingham, about 80 miles north of Seattle, to the nation’s capital to carry out his attack.

In response to both emails, the United States Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, or USCRI, visited Bellingham a few weeks later, in March 2024, and attempted to make contact with Lakanwal and his family, according to the community member who, having received no updates, felt like he had refused their help.

A request for comment and clarification from USCRI was not immediately returned.