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US President Donald Trump says one of the two West Virginia National Guard troops shot by an Afghan national late on Wednesday evening near the White House has died.
As part of a thanksgiving call with US troops, Trump announced that Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, who was only 20-years-old, had died in hospitals from injuries sustained in the shooting incident.
“She’s just passed away,” Trump said. “She’s no longer with us. She’s looking down at us right now. Her parents are with her.”
The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.” The White House said he spoke to her parents after his remarks.
Trump noted that the second National Guardsman, 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, was still hospitalised and is “fighting for his life” after also sustaining critical wounds.
Trump used the announcement to label the shooting as a “terrorist attack” and criticised the Biden administration for enabling Afghans who worked with US forces during the Afghanistan War to enter the country.
Trump held a print-out of a photo of Afghan evacuees sitting on the floor of a military plane during the chaotic US withdrawal from Kabul in 2021 during his remarks. He suggested that the shooter was mentally unstable after the war and departure from Afghanistan.
He slammed the suspect charged with the shooting, calling him a “savage monster”. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was apprehended by police and National Guard members during the shooting, has been charged with assault, but authorities noted that charges would be upgraded if one of the National Guard troops died.
The 29-year-old Afghan national worked in a special CIA-backed Afghan Army unit before emigrating from Afghanistan during Washington’s two-decade presence there, according to two sources who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Trump blamed the asylum process in which Afghans who worked with US forces arrived by plane for being ineffective and failing to ensure people were properly vetted.
“We have no greater national security priority than ensuring that we have full control over the people that enter and remain in our country,” Trump said. “For the most part, we don’t want them.”
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said that the suspect launched an “ambush-style” attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver handgun. Pirro declined to provide a motive for Wednesday afternoon’s brazen act of violence which occurred just blocks from the White House.
The rare shooting of National Guard members on US soil comes amid court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.
The US president has deployed National Guard members in part to assist in his administration’s mass deportation efforts.
Trump issued an emergency order in August that federalised the Washington DC police force and sent in National Guard troops from multiple states.
The order expired in September, but the troops have remained in the city, where nearly 2,200 troops currently are assigned, according to the government’s latest update.
Following Wednesday evening’s shooting, Trump, in a video address, announced that he had ordered Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy an additional 500 National Guardsmen to ramp up security in the US capital.
Additional sources • AP