Locals Say National Guard Shooter Was Imprisoned in Afghanistan After "Zero Unit" Killings [View all]

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was arrested for shooting two National Guard soldiers last week in D.C., was briefly imprisoned in Afghanistan alongside other members of his Zero Unit team, according to five Afghan sources. The detention by local government forces came after Zero Units killed Afghan police forces in Kandahar they were supposed to be defending.

Notwithstanding their arrests, there were no longterm consequences for the Zero Units; the Afghan state had no authority over them and the Americans shielded them. During his few days in prison, which Lakanwal and his comrades had to face after the incident in Kandahar, they still received their pay from the CIA, sources said.

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment.

The deadly assault last week near the White House was like a scene drawn from the world that the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, once inhabited in Afghanistan and which was shaped by the U.S.-led War on Terror during the last two decades. He allegedly targeted two National Guard soldiers in an ambush outside the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C. One of them, Sarah Beckstrom, has since died, while the second remains in critical condition. President Donald Trump condemned the attack as an “act of terror” and blamed his predecessor, Joe Biden, for evacuating Lakanwal to the United States in 2021 during the chaotic NATO withdrawal and the Taliban’s return. Lakanwal is facing murder charges.

The Afghan father of five was not a simple interpreter or contractor, like many of the thousands evacuated at that time. He belonged to a notorious militia created by the CIA at the height of the War on Terror: the so-called Zero Units. These forces operated in several regions of Afghanistan; in his home province of Khost, parallel structures like the Khost Protection Force (KPF) did the same. Together they formed a network of loyal proxies that the CIA relied on for night raids, intelligence work, and counterinsurgency, often operating far beyond any legal or moral boundaries.


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