One valiant young woman is dead. One young man is still fighting for his life. And the American public is absorbing what the consequences of the withdrawl from Afghanistan have become.

As of the writing of this post, Air Force Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe is still in critical condition. Army Specialist Sarah Beckstrom died on Thanksgiving Day after being mortally wounded. The question now becomes, why would Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the alleged shooter, commit this act of terror? At least, that’s the questions investigators are asking.

The trial balloon excuse of the moment? PTSD.

Investigators are probing if PTSD was a possible factor that fueled alleged DC shooter Rahmanullah Lakanwal’s rampage, sources said Friday, given his time working in a CIA-backed Afghan unit that’s been accused of brutality.

Lakanwal, 29, served eight years in the Kandahar Strike Force known as one of the “Zero Units” during US operations in Afghanistan, and was “responsible and professional,” an ex-Afghan commanding officer told CBS News.

But he has grappled with mental health issues since landing in American in 2021 as part of “Operation Allies Welcome,” a Biden administration program that helped Afghans who fought against the Taliban flee the war-torn nation.

“He was known for being responsible and professional within his team and had strong anti-Taliban views,” said Lt. Gen. Sami Sadat, a former commanding general of the Afghan National Special Operations Corps.

This would be a good time to take these excuses, write them down on a piece of paper, crumple it up and throw it away. The next line in the article proves, to most reasonable people, that what Lakanwal did was nothing less than a premeditated act of terrorism.

The married father of five is accused of opening fire on two National Guard members Wednesday, killing one and critically wounding the other after driving from Washington state to carry out the possible terror attack, officials said.

Lakanwal, his wife, and five children were all evacuated out of Afghanistan, and settled in Bellingham, Washington, which is about 22 miles from the border between the United States and Canada. We now know that Lakanwal drove from Bellingham to Washington, DC, with the Smith & Wesson .357 revolver used to commit this act of terror. For those of you keeping score at home, that drive from Bellingham to DC is a 41 hour trip (with no breaks), spanning approximately 2,819 miles, according to Google Maps. No person “snaps” due to PTSD and then drives nearly three thousand miles to commit murder. The distance alone should tell any reasonable person that this was a premeditated act. Lakanwal did not pick a nearby target in Bellingham, or even the nearest military base in Washington state, either of which would have been terrible enough. He drove all the way to the nation’s capital to kill.

So, what is driving the PTSD theory? Note that his former commanding general says that he had “strong anti-Taliban views.” Um, being anti-Taliban does not make one pro-America. It does mean that he likely feared for his life when the Taliban swept back over Afghanistan, and the Biden administration weakly pleaded to finish the evacuation. We are now living with the consequences, yet again, of Joe Biden’s devastating screw-up. Lakanwal may have cooperated with the American forces in Afghanistan, but that doesn’t mean he was willing to uproot his life and move to Bellingham. And now CIA Director John Ratcliffe says he shouldn’t have been allowed in at all.

Rahmanullah Lakanwal and his family were welcomed into the US four years ago after serving in a CIA-backed elite Afghan commando “Zero Unit” that was accused of torture and the brutal murder of civilians.

After his war-torn country fell to barbaric Taliban rule, the 29-year-old was given a $2,000-per-month apartment in the quiet town of Bellingham, Washington, neighbors told The Post — along with, reportedly, a contracting gig at Amazon.

“This individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here,” CIA director John Ratcliffe said in response to the shooting, revealing that Lakanwal previously worked for a unit tied to the spy agency.

Lakanwal served in the elite NDS-03 counterterrorism unit in Afghanistan, one of at least five paramilitary “Zero Units” that worked with the CIA, according to the nonprofit group #AfghanEvac.

Lakanwal was vetted by the CIA and checked through the National Counterterrorism Center, a senior US official told CNN. “He was clean on all checks,” the official said.

Just because he had no known terror ties, doesn’t mean that he was ready to begin a new life in America, working as an Amazon Flex driver, when he previously had held the power of life and death (allegedly) over others while in his paramilitary unit in Afghanistan. He probably left, along with his family, because we know what the Taliban has done to anyone who isn’t one of them. But clearly, he could not make the adjustment – and chose to take out his anger in a premeditated act of violence. And this happens more often than we want to know.

Chad Robichaux, 50, in an exclusive interview noted that said he’s been sounding the alarm about the risk of Afghan evacuees ever since the Biden administration’s botched bugout from the Middle East nation in 2021 — and how the US faces an elevated threat of terrorism as a result of poor refugee vetting.

“When you talk about someone that’s, like, worked with the CIA or worked with special operations, just works through our troops,” Robichaux said, “you have to understand, like, when you go work in another country with local nationals, there’s an inherent risk to that. You have to depend on these people.”

“The vetting’s fast. You have to utilize local nationals. So there’s always gonna be a segment of the population that’s gonna be disloyal and … turn on you,” he added. “And it happens a lot more than people suspect.”

As a Marine in Afghanistan and later the leader of a “coalition effort” that evacuated locals from the nation amid the US pullout, Robichaux saw firsthand how quickly some of the US-backed Afghans were willing to sell them out — or “turn on” them and “shoot everybody in their team.”

“In my program, we had CIA-trained guys,” he recalled. “I slept on the side of mountains with this guy … and one other Afghan numerous times. I trusted him with my life. He turns on us, has a vehicle bomb driven into my house, has 12 of our teammates rolled up, captured and killed, and I got abducted by a foreign intelligence agency because of this guy.”

“Just because someone worked with the CIA or special operations unit doesn’t automatically mean they should be allowed to come to the United States,” he added. “The State Department still has to have their immigration process for that and do due diligence to vet them out.”

National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent made the point that Lakanwal was never vetted to become an American.

The barbaric terrorist attack in Washington D.C. by an Afghan terrorist has spurred righteous outrage over the Biden admin’s policy of importing people hostile to our nation.

It is true that the terrorist who conducted the attack in D.C. was “vetted” by the intelligence…

— NCTC Director Joe Kent (@NCTCKent) November 28, 2025

The post reads, in part:

It is true that the terrorist who conducted the attack in D.C. was “vetted” by the intelligence community, however he was only vetted to serve as a soldier to fight against the Taliban, AQ, & ISIS IN Afghanistan, he was NOT vetted for his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen.

During Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, his administration negligently used the vetting standard described above as the standard for being brought directly into the U.S., foregoing previous vetting standards applied to Special Immigrant Visas and any common sense vetting or concern for Americans. As a result, over 85k Afghans—including individuals with backgrounds similar to this shooter— were rapidly admitted into our country without the rigorous vetting that has protected us in the past. And that’s just Afghans; broader immigration from Muslim majority nations & regions surged, with over 2 million individuals entering during Biden’s term, often with minimal scrutiny amid record border crossings. This is a deadly combination.

Incidents like this aren’t isolated—they’re the predictable outcome of prioritizing speed and volume over security. As we move forward, we must commit to a strengthened and comprehensive vetting and removal process to safeguard our homeland and ensure only those who truly align with American values are admitted, to prevent future tragedies.

The sickening realization that we should all be having now is that there is probably another Rahmanullah Lakanwal in the United States, and even one is too many. Now, like the thirteen servicemembers at Abbey Gate, two National Guardsmen have paid the price for the failures by the Biden administration. Assumed or alleged PTSD is not an excuse to drive cross-country to ambush and shoot our military. This is a much bigger problem than the American public was led to believe, and we are not going to like the magnitude of the problem that gets uncovered.

Featured image: original Victory Girls art by Darleen Click