Authorities are set to carry a press convention Thursday morning after two Nationwide Guard members from West Virginia stay in essential situation after a gunman opened hearth on them in an obvious “focused capturing” close to the White Home, officers stated.
The gunfire broke out round 2:15 p.m. Wednesday, when the shooter rounded a nook, close to the Farragut West Metro station in Washington, D.C., raised his arm with the weapon and opened hearth, Metropolitan Police Division Government Assistant Chief Jeffery Carroll stated.
Different Nationwide Guard members shortly responded and helped subdue the suspected shooter, Carroll stated.
“They heard the gunfire they usually truly had been in a position to intervene and to carry down the suspect after he had been shot on the bottom,” Carroll stated of the responding Guard members.
Regulation enforcement officers, together with FBI Director Kash Patel, are scheduled to carry a information convention at 9 a.m. ET on Thursday on the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace in Washington. U.S. Lawyer Jeanine Pirro is anticipated to be current.
The White Home was briefly placed on lockdown on Wednesday however that the order was lifted at about 5 p.m. President Donald Trump and the primary girl are in Florida, the place they’re spending Thanksgiving at his Mar-a-Lago membership.
The suspected gunman has been recognized by legislation enforcement as 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a number of legislation enforcement sources acquainted with the investigation advised ABC Information.
Lakanwal is believed to be from Afghanistan and got here to the US in 2021 beneath the Biden administration, the sources stated. He utilized for asylum in 2024 and was granted asylum in April 2025, beneath the Trump administration, in accordance with three legislation enforcement sources.
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 26: Members of the U.S. Secret Service responds to a capturing close to the White Home on November 26, 2025 in Washington, DC. In response to stories, two Nationwide Guardsmen from West Virginia had been shot blocks from the White Home. A suspect is being detained at a neighborhood hospital.
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photos
“He beforehand labored with the USG, together with CIA, as a member of a associate pressure in Kandahar that resulted in 2021 following the withdrawal from Afghanistan,” CIA director John Ratcliffe stated on Thursday.
A number of sources advised ABC Information that the FBI is investigating the capturing as a possible act of worldwide terrorism, suggesting authorities try to find out if it could have been impressed by a global terrorist group.
“[The suspect] would have been vetted in opposition to categorized and unclassified holdings when he got here right here and as a part of the asylum course of,” stated ABC Information contributor John Cohen, who was the previous head of intelligence for the Division of Homeland Safety and a former U.S. counterterrorism coordinator. “He was truly granted asylum beneath the Trump administration … This does increase the query whether or not the administration is focusing sufficient on terrorism threats versus civil immigration enforcement.”
The Nationwide Guard was deployed to the nation’s capital as a part of Trump’s federal takeover of town in August. In response to the latest replace, there have been 2,188 Guard personnel assigned to D.C.
On Tuesday, in the course of the conventional turkey pardoning on the White Home, Trump touted his administration’s takeover of D.C. streets. He stated it was “one in every of our most unsafe locations anyplace in the US. It’s now thought of a very secure metropolis.”
“You could possibly stroll down any road in Washington and you are going to be simply tremendous. And I wish to thank the Nationwide Guard. I wish to thanks for the job you have performed right here is unimaginable,” Trump stated on the occasion.
ABC Information’ Ahmad Hemingway contributed to this report.
