Islamabad – The tragic shooting in the US capital, Washington, has quickly become a flashpoint for renewed diplomatic tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, after a senior Afghan official accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of trying to exploit the incident.
The case concerned an incident in which an Afghan-origin man, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, fired his gun at two US National Guard soldiers, killing one and injuring the other.
In response to the global scrutiny, the acting Afghan ambassador to Qatar, Suhail Shaheen, used an interview with an Indian media outlet to claim that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is attempting to link the latest incident in Washington to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan simply to discredit the government in Kabul.
Ambassador Shaheen suggested that other foreign agencies might also be involved in a conspiracy to present Afghans as a security threat.
Shaheen strongly reiterated the official stance of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, emphasizing that their position is firm, that “they will not allow any party to use Afghan soil for attacks abroad.”
Facts Contradict Claim of ISI-Backed Disinformation
While the investigation into the shooter’s motive is ongoing, the confirmed details about Rahmanullah Lakanwal directly challenge the ambassador’s claim that Pakistan is trying to link the attack to the current Afghan government.
Facts confirmed by US authorities and media reports show that Lakanwal was a member of the Afghan Special Forces, a counterterrorism partner force that actively worked alongside and was backed by US military and intelligence entities, including the CIA, during the war against the Taliban.
Because of his work alongside US forces, Lakanwal was evacuated and resettled in the United States in 2021 under Operation Allies Welcome, the very program designed to protect Afghans at risk of Taliban retaliation.
Since the shooter was a former US-backed combatant who fought against the Islamic Emirate for years, any attempt to link the attack to the current government in Kabul is fundamentally undermined by his history. If a foreign agency wanted to frame the Taliban, they would not choose a shooter whose personal history is so strongly aligned with the Taliban’s historical enemies.
Pakistan Condemned the Washington Attack
Pakistan, for its part, released a statement strongly condemning the shooting as a “heinous assault on US soil” and an “act of terrorism,” using the incident to highlight its own struggle with transnational terrorism originating from the Afghan region.
