Alleged National Guard shooter served in CIA-backed 'Zero Unit.' War reporter says that may have contributed

After acquisition thomas more almost Rahmanullah Lakanwal, the adult male accused of shot two National Guard members in Washington, D.C. Last week, Kevin Maurer says the news no longer surprises him.

While there’s still no clear motive for the shooting, authorities have learned that the 29-year-old Afghan national served in a “Zero Unit,” a CIA-backed Afghan paramilitary unit in Kandahar.  

Maurer covered the “Zero Units” extensively as a reporter on the Afghanistan war beat for 17 years.

He says knowing what he does about life in those units — and an interview he had with an Afghan veteran who served alongside Lakanwal — lead him to believe the experience may have contributed to the violence Nov. 26. The brazen daylight shooting killed Army specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and wounded Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.

Maurer wrote about his conversation with the Afghan veteran in Rolling Stone. He spoke with As It Happens host Nil Koksal about what he learned.

Here’s part of that conversation:

For someone who's never heard of the “Zero Unit,” how would you describe them? 

I think the easiest way to describe the Zero Units is they are the CIA secret army. Their job was to do raids, commando-style missions on behalf of the CIA… The reality is they were really on the front foot of the war on terror. Their job was to track terrorists and targets. Their job was to to conduct raids against suicide-bomber facilities, levels of targets like that. They really were focused on the CIA's top list of targets, men that they really wanted to take off the battlefield. 

When you heard about the suspect taken into custody after the National Guard shooting last week, what did you think? 

Well, I've been following the Zero Units and their resettlement for a while, and I've been talking to a lot of advocates who'd been helping. The strain that this community was under — mental health, trying to assimilate, being able to be economically viable — was so much, that a lot of the advocates that I was talking with told me stories about psychotic breaks, suicide attempts. And so I wish I could say I was surprised, but it was something that they had predicted was going to happen. 

In your latest reporting out today in Rolling Stone, you write that you spoke to a unit member of the suspect who is in custody. What did they tell you? 

The man I talked to has served with them, knew him well and had been in touch with them in the months leading up to the alleged shooting in DC. And what they laid out was a man who was under tremendous pressure, wasn't able to provide for his family, was having trouble assimilating, language issues and didn't really feel safe in Bellingham, Washington. So he was really looking to move to the larger Afghan community. 

What did that unit member think when they heard about the shooting and that he'd been taken into custody?

Everyone I spoke to associated with the Zero Unit community was shocked. And they do not agree with this, they disavow it. So much of what the Zero Unit mission was was protecting the CIA officers of the Americans, not only in the bases, but on these missions, that to them, this is the antithesis of what they trained for. And so, as much as they condemn it, I know the advocates had warned that this could happen, especially around some of the stresses that this community was facing. 

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They resettled, but you also report that they were asking for help from the CIA, specifically the unit member, the suspect. What was the response? 

The group chat that I was able to see and was shared with me showed that there were cries for help and that the CIA was not responding to these cries. This unit in particular, the Zero Units, and this community in particular, has had some trouble getting the special immigrant visas because of the fact that they worked in a clandestine nature. And so the CIA hasn't been as forthcoming identifying them as vetted Afghan soldiers, which is making their SIV [Special Immigrant Visa] process, I think, a little more difficult than, say, other Afghans who are being resettled here. 

When you think back to when you first encountered those serving in the Zero Units and compare that to talking to folks now, how would you compare? 

These are men who fought for 10, 20 years, some of them and now no longer have a country. And I think it's difficult sometimes for us to wrap our heads around the idea that a lot of these soldiers believed in what they were fighting for, were fighting for an Afghanistan that they envisioned — a diplomatic Afghanistan. And now that doesn't exist. And so, you know, a lot of them have flag tattoos and that kind of ache and that pain of losing their country, I don't think they can shake. 

You’re reporting that mental illness may have been an issue with the suspect. The New York Times is reporting along similar lines as well. 

I don't think anyone can go to war and come back unchanged. And I think if you fought for as long as these men fought for doing the kinds of missions that we're talking about, going after suicide bombers, seeing their unit mates and their actual blood brothers killed in action — and almost to a man, no one I talked to hadn't had someone close to them that they had lost — I don't think you can take that kind of trauma and come out without that echoing through the rest of your life. 

In the aftermath of the shootings, the Trump administration announced it's halting all visa applications from Afghanistan, including for people who fought alongside American troops. You've already said that the folks in these units, these men were already feeling adrift in many ways. Do you think this case could bring more attention to what they're dealing with, even with what the administration has announced? 

I hope that we can acknowledge the horrific nature of this case. And what I was hoping was my reporting … was to try to give some compassion to a community that is is working to resettle, and for the most part, is trying to become part of American society and has earned the right to try to get there based on the service that they exhibited in Afghanistan. 

Audio produced by Livia Dyring

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