US president says second National Guard member is ‘fighting for his life’ after the attack a day earlier in Washington, DC.
United States President Donald Trump has said one of two National Guard troops shot a day earlier near the White House has died, while the other soldier is “fighting for his life”.
Trump said on Thursday evening that West Virginia National Guard member Sarah Beckstrom died from wounds sustained in the double shooting on Wednesday, a short distance from the White House, after being ambushed.
President Trump hailed 20-year-old Beckstrom as a “highly respected, young, magnificent person”.
He said that fellow serviceman 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe remains in critical condition.
“He’s in very bad shape,” Trump said as he addressed troops in a video call to mark the Thanksgiving holiday in the US.
Authorities have named Rahmanaullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national, as the main suspect in the shootings of the two National Guard members.
The CIA said that Lakanwal had worked for the US spy agency in Afghanistan before emigrating to the US in 2021, shortly after the withdrawal of Western forces from the country.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Washington, DC, Rosiland Jordan, said Beckstrom joined West Virginia’s National Guard two years ago after leaving high school.
“She was on patrol with a fellow member of the West Virginia National Guard on Wednesday afternoon, mid-afternoon, when authorities say she and her partner were ambushed by a man,” Jordan said.
US Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said on Thursday that prosecutors would pursue first-degree murder charges against Lakanwal should either or both of the victims not survive the gun attack.
“We are praying that they survive and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree,” Pirro said.
“But make no mistake, if they do not, that will certainly be the charge,” she said.
Following the attack, the Trump administration announced it was conducting a sweeping review of green cards issued to individuals who immigrated to the US from 19 countries, including Afghanistan.
On Thursday night, the president ordered a “full scale, rigorous re-examination of every green card for every alien from every country of concern”, said Joseph Edlow, the head of US Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Al Jazeera’s Jordan said the Trump administration is scrutinising green cards to “see if perhaps people might have been given permission to reside and to work in the United States [who] really should have been denied that privilege, as the administration calls it”.
