The suspect who shot two members of the Washington National Guard on Thursday, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was an Afghan national who had been working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) back in 2011, CNN reported a senior US official as saying on Thursday.
At the time, the agency conducted its own vetting process using a range of databases, including the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) database, to check if he had any known ties to terrorist organizations.
The official explained that the agency conducted its own vetting before he began working with them and kept the identities of its collaborators confidential.
The NCTC then conducted another vetting process for him during the 2021 Allied Welcome Process to ensure he had no ties to terrorism before allowing him entry into the United States.
His record was clean at the time, and no links to terrorist organizations were found, according to the senior US official.
“As far as the security vetting was concerned, nothing came up,” the official said. “His record was clean at every stage of the screening process,” he added.
The official noted that the US government has conducted annual and ongoing vetting of individuals since Afghans began arriving in the US, particularly after a terrorist plot was thwarted before last year’s election in Oklahoma, in which one of the Afghans on the vetting list was involved.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
