WASHINGTON: The FBI said Thursday it was launching a full-scale terror probe after a gunman carried out what officials described as an “ambush style” attack near the White House, shooting two National Guard soldiers multiple times with a revolver.
The young soldiers shot Wednesday remained in critical condition, as America was jolted on what is normally a quiet day with family and friends on the Thanksgiving holiday.
The shooter was identified as 29-year-old Afghan national Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who worked with US forces in his country during the war against the Taliban and settled in America after the group seized power again in 2021 and the Americans withdrew chaotically.
The shooter faces charges of assault with intent to kill, and if the guardsmen die he will face first-degree murder charges, US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jean Pirro told a news conference.
“You picked the wrong target, the wrong city and the wrong country,” Pirro said.
“It is an ongoing investigation of terrorism,” FBI director Kash Patel told the same news conference.
He said officials are investigating any associates the suspect had either back home or in the United States.
“That is what a broad-based international terrorism investigation looks like,” Patel said.
Officials said Lakanwal, armed with a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver, staged an ambush attack on the two National Guard members.
The soldiers were deployed to Washington under President Donald Trump’s much-disputed use of military forces in Democrat-run cities to fight what he calls rampant violent crime.
Pirro said the shooter walked up to the soldiers near a subway stop a stone’s throw from the White House and started shooting “without provocation, ambush style.”
“One guardsman is struck, goes down, and then the shooter leans over and strikes the guardsman again,” Pirro said. “Fellow guardsmen who were there responded, immediately, engaging the suspect, neutralizing the threat and subduing him at the scene.
FBI launches terror probe after Washington shooting
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FBI launches terror probe after Washington shooting
- Shooter was identified as 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with US forces in his country during the war against the Taliban and settled in America
Mass shooting at a South African bar leaves 11 dead, including 3 children
- Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital
- The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl
CAPE TOWN: A mass shooting carried out Saturday by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital left at least 11 people dead, police said. The victims included three children aged 3, 12 and 16.
Another 14 people were wounded and taken to the hospital, according to a statement from the South African Police Services. Police didn’t give details on the ages of those who were injured or their conditions.
The shooting happened at a bar inside a hostel in the Saulsville township west of the administrative capital of Pretoria in the early hours of Saturday. Ten of the victims died at the scene and the 11th died at the hospital, police said.
The children killed were a 3-year-old boy, a 12-year-old boy and a 16-year-old girl. Police said they were searching for three male suspects.
“We are told that at least three unknown gunmen entered this hostel where a group of people were drinking and they started randomly shooting,” police spokesperson Brig. Athlenda Mathe told national broadcaster SABC. She said the motive for the killings was not clear. The shootings happened at around 4.15 a.m., she said, but police were only alerted at 6 a.m.
South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world and recorded more than 26,000 homicides in 2024 — an average of more than 70 a day. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides.
The country of 62 million people has relatively strict gun ownership laws, but many killings are committed with illegal guns, authorities say.
There have been several mass shootings at bars — sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa — in recent years, including one that killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.
Mathe said that mass shootings at unlicensed bars were becoming a serious problem and police had shut down more than 11,000 illegal taverns between April and September this year and arrested more than 18,000 people for involvement in illegal liquor sales.
Recent mass killings in South Africa have not been confined to bars, however. Police said 18 people were killed, 15 of them women, in mass shootings minutes apart at two houses on the same road in a rural part of Eastern Cape province in September last year.
Seven men were arrested for those shootings and face multiple charges of murder, while police recovered three AK-style assault rifles they believe were used in the shootings.
