WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 21: US President Donald Trump visits the US Park Police Anacostia Operations Facility in Washington, DC on August 21, 2025.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Images News | Getty Images
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that a National Guard member was killed in an ambush by Afghans near the White House. The attack has sparked criticism of immigration failures during the Biden administration and prompted a fundamental overhaul of asylum applications.
After Wednesday’s shooting, which investigators described as a terrorism investigation, President Trump said Sara Beckstrom, 20, had died from her injuries and that fellow Guardsman Andrew Wolf, 24, was “fighting for his life.”
The FBI is searching multiple properties in a wide-ranging investigation, including a Washington state home associated with the suspect, who officials said was part of a CIA-backed unit in Afghanistan before coming to the United States in 2021 under a resettlement program.
FBI Director Kash Patel said at a news conference that agents seized numerous electronic devices from the home of Rahmanullah Rakanwal, 29, including a cell phone, laptop and iPad, and interviewed his relatives.
U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro in Washington, D.C., said the suspect drove his car across and ambushed Guard members on patrol near the White House on Wednesday afternoon.
“I want to express the collective pain and horror of our nation over the terrorist attack that occurred yesterday in our nation’s capital, where a ferocious monster shot and killed two West Virginia National Guard members who were deployed as part of a special task force in Washington, D.C.,” President Trump said in a Thanksgiving message to members of the U.S. military.
President Trump said the suspect’s brutality was “a reminder that there is no greater national security priority than having complete control over the people who enter and remain in our country.”
The gunman, armed with a high-powered revolver, .357 Magnum, shot one of the fallen members, then fired again, and fired multiple times at the second member. The suspect was injured in a gunfight with security guards before being arrested. He was hospitalized under tight security on Thursday, and President Trump said he was in serious condition.
Washington Metropolitan Police Chief Jeff Carroll said the alleged attacker lived in Washington state with his wife and five children, but appeared to have acted alone.
