Two Members of the West Virginia National Guard Shot in Washington D.C.

What Happened?

Two members of the West Virginia National Guard remained in critical condition Wednesday after being shot just a few blocks from the White House. According to the associated press, the suspect was reportedly an Afghan national who entered the United States in 2021. The suspect reportedly ambushed the national guard members and appears to have acted alone. 

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said President Trump had requested an additional five hundred guard members for D.C., although a federal judge has issued a ruling ordering the Trump Administration to end the deployment. 

Why it Matters

The shootings mark the first casualties of any national guard members stemming from deployments ordered by the Trump Administration. The governor of West Virginia had initially said both guard members had died from their wounds, but he later revised that statement as sources in D.C. indicated they remained alive but in critical condition. A federal ruling requiring the guard deployment to D.C. to end has been appealed, and it remains unclear whether the additional forces will go ahead and deploy to the nation’s capital. 

Little is known about the suspect other than he is an Afghan national, which raises the possibility that his motivation was retaliation for previous U.S. military action in Afghanistan. The U.S. military conducted large-scale combat operations in Afghanistan from 2001 through 2021 to locate and eliminate the terrorist group known as Al Qaeda, who were responsible for the terrorist attacks of 9/11. 

After the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, several former Afghan interpreters and other nationals who provided the U.S. miliary with aid and intelligence during the war moved to the United States. Whether the suspected D.C. shooter was one of those has not yet been made public. Interpreters and other Afghan nationals provided critical intelligence to the U.S. military which often resulted in the capture and killing of Al Qaeda terrorists and prevented the deaths of American personnel. 

Many members of the U.S. military strongly advocated for former Afghan interpreters and officers to be relocated to the United States because the Taliban had issued orders to find and kill all of them. Had they remained in Afghanistan they faced certain death. While the effort to extract Afghans who provided valuable assistance to the U.S. military was justified, it is possible that some Afghans who were allowed to come to America were not who they said they were, despite extensive vetting. 

How it Affects You

The shootings of two National Guard members in D.C. is already becoming a political lightning rod. With critics blaming the Trump Administration for putting them where they shouldn’t have been and the Trump Administration calling for more troops to patrol the nation’s capital.