by Jerry Dunleavy
The CIA helped bring thousands of its Afghan partner forces — called the "Zero Unit" — to the U.S. under Joe Biden's watch, following the shambolic evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021. Now, one of those Afghan commandos stands accused of murdering a National Guard soldier on the streets of Washington, D.C.
The Afghan national who has been charged with shooting two members of the West Virginia National Guard this week was reportedly a member of the elite Afghan “Zero Unit” forces backed by the CIA — with the U.S. spy agency apparently having struck a 2021 deal with these Afghan commandos to bring thousands of the fighters and their families to the United States.
The CIA appeared to have quietly cut a deal with thousands of its paramilitary-style Zero Unit forces in Afghanistan in August 2021 as the Taliban took over the country and its capital of Kabul. According to a former intelligence officer who spoke with Just the News who declined to be identified, the terms of the deal were that if the Zeroes helped secure Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA) during the chaotic non-combatant evacuation operation (NEO) then, in exchange for that and for their years of coordination with the U.S. spy agency, the fighters and their families would earn an airlift to the U.S.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a former member of the National Strike Unit (NSU) forces, which were tied to the CIA and to the former Afghan government’s National Directorate of Security (NDS), reportedly assisted in securing HKIA during the NEO and arrived in the U.S. with his family in September 2021. The Taliban took over Afghanistan in August 2021 following then-President Joe Biden’s April 2021 go-to-zero directive ordering the full withdrawal of U.S. troops.
Trump: "A monstrous ambush-style attack"
Years later, the Afghan fighter drove thousands of miles from the West Coast of the U.S. and is accused of attacking two members of the West Virginia National Guard the day before Thanksgiving this week, killing one and critically wounding the other in what President Donald Trump called "a monstrous, ambush-style attack just steps away from the White House."
Numerous news outlets have reported that Lakanwal was a member of the Zero Units, and that the Afghan commando unit which he was affiliated with had been based out of Kandahar province in southern Afghanistan before he was evacuated to the U.S. during the NEO in August 2021.
The U.S. cut a deal with the Afghan Zero Unit commando forces to secure the Kabul airport during the chaotic evacuation of U.S. citizens and Afghan nationals, with the U.S. relying upon the Zeroes to help clear the airfield and then using the Afghan commandos to provide security during the evacuation. In exchange, the U.S. agreed to evacuate many thousands of the Afghan commandos and their families.
The New York Times reported that Lakanwal had enlisted with a Zero Unit at a young age, and that “that connection appears to have given Mr. Lakanwal a ticket out of Afghanistan when the Taliban toppled the American-backed government in 2021, allowing him to flee with his wife and children.” The outlet cited an Afghan intelligence official when reporting that Lakanwal along with other unit members were evacuated with the United States’ help, including its last commander. Lakanwal resettled in the Seattle area.
The Guard members apparently shot by Lakanwal mere blocks from the White House were 20-year-old Sarah Beckstrom and 24-year-old Andrew Wolfe, who were part of the Trump administration’s high-visibility patrol efforts in Washington, D.C., aimed at reducing crime in the nation’s capital. Trump announced on Thursday that Beckstrom, an Army specialist, had died from her gunshot wounds. Trump added that Wolfe, a U.S. Air Force staff sergeant, remains in critical condition at the hospital.
Lakanwal has been arrested, and U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro said he will face first-degree murder charges.
The CIA did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.
Lakanwal worked for CIA-linked Afghan commando unit
CIA Director John Ratcliffe confirmed Lakanwal’s prior affiliation with the CIA on Thursday, although without directly naming him as a Zero Unit member.
"In the wake of the disastrous Biden withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Biden administration justified bringing the alleged shooter to the United States in September 2021 due to his prior work with the U.S. government, including CIA, as a member of a partner force in Kandahar, which ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation,” Ratcliffe told Fox News. “The individual — and so many others — should have never been allowed to come here. Our citizens and service members deserve far better than to endure the ongoing fallout from the Biden administration’s catastrophic failures."
Joe Kent, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), tweeted on Friday that “it is true that the terrorist who conducted the attack in D.C. was ‘vetted’ by the intelligence community. However, he was only vetted to serve as a soldier to fight against the Taliban, AQ, & ISIS IN Afghanistan, he was NOT vetted for his suitability to come to America and live among us as a neighbor, integrate into our communities, or eventually become an American citizen.”
“During Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, his administration negligently used the vetting standard described above as the standard for being brought directly into the U.S., foregoing previous vetting standards applied to Special Immigrant Visas and any common sense vetting or concern for Americans,” Kent added. “As a result, over 85k Afghans — including individuals with backgrounds similar to this shooter — were rapidly admitted into our country without the rigorous vetting that has protected us in the past.”
CIA alum Sarah Adams and other Afghanistan analysts circulated an image of Lakanwal’s alleged ID badge indicating his membership in the Kandahar Strike Force element of the Zero Units, specifically one named “NSU 03.” The badge also listed “Firebase Gecko” — the name of a base used by the CIA and U.S. special forces in Kandahar province.
AfghanEvac — a U.S.-based coalition advocating for Afghan refugees — reportedly confirmed that Lakanwal serviced in “Unit 03” of the Zero Units, was evacuated by the U.S. military in August 2021, that he arrived in the U.S. under humanitarian parole, that he was granted asylum in April, that he had a Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) application under consideration which had received Chief of Mission (COM) approval, and that his SIV application and COM application would have required review by the CIA.
Legacy media blames Trump for Biden's program
Reuters reported that the alleged gunman was granted asylum this year under President Donald Trump, according to a U.S. government file seen by the news agency. But Lakanwal was already in the U.S. having entered the country on September 8, 2021, under "Operation Allies Welcome," the resettlement program set up by former Democratic President Joe Biden after the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Biden still occupied the White House at that time.
Jennifer Griffin of Fox News cited anonymous sources when she reported that Lakanwal “began working with the CIA around 2011” and that “at the time CIA would have done its own vetting of him through a variety of databases, including NCTC database, to see if he had any known ties to terrorist groups.”
Griffin reported that she was told that “there was nothing in his background when he arrived in the US on Sept 8, 2021 that suggested links to terrorism” and that “he applied for asylum last year and reportedly received asylum in April under the Trump administration.” Griffin reported that NCTC “would have vetted him during 2021 Operation Allies Welcome for any ties to terrorism before he was allowed into the U.S.” and that “he was clean then as well and did not show any ties to terror organizations.”
Thousands of Zero Unit fighters brought to the U.S.
Thousands of the Afghan Zero Unit fighters were brought to the U.S. after the NEO in August 2021.
NBC News previously reported that “10,000 to 12,000 members” of the Zero Units “were evacuated from Afghanistan when the U.S. military withdrew from the country in August 2021.” When the Zero Unit family members were added to the total, it rose even more.
Brigadier General Farrell Sullivan, who was on the ground at HKIA during the NEO, told investigators that “it wasn’t until the 20th or 21st [of August 2021] that we found out the deal was to get 38,800 NSU fighters and family members out. Initially we [were] tracking 6,000, so that was a huge jump that could have put our outflow estimates at risk in terms of meeting our 31 August timeline.”
The Pentagon’s after-action review on the NEO said that “the added responsibility, mid-stream, to adjudicate the list of eligible evacuation populations to include a previously unknown 30,000 NSU personnel ultimately became a key factor to recommend mobilizing the CRAF [Civil Reserve Air Fleet].”
U.S. forced to rely upon the Zero Units during the NEO
The New York Times reported that “as the Afghan military dissolved and the U.S. military scrambled to evacuate thousands of people during the Taliban’s takeover, the Zero Units were essential to securing the remaining U.S. and NATO bases in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital” and that “for some Zero Unit members, this ensured their eventual evacuation to the United States.”
The Washington Post reported that “Zero Unit soldiers collected U.S. civilian personnel and members of the NATO coalition from their homes, shepherding them through the chaos and crowds outside the Kabul airport while also guarding its perimeter.”
General Frank McKenzie, the now-former commander of CENTCOM, had held a mid-August 2021 meeting with Taliban leader Mullah Baradar in Qatar which would end with the Taliban taking control of Kabul. McKenzie relied upon the goodwill of Taliban fighters to provide security outside the Kabul airport during the evacuation after McKenzie rejected the Taliban’s offer to allow the U.S. to secure the Afghan capital.
McKenzie wrote in his memoir that, on August 16, 2021, he was flying back from Doha with the intention of landing at HKIA, but he got a call from Rear Admiral Peter Vasely while he was in the air, with the general on the ground relaying to him that the airfield had been overrun.
“We did have a solution though,” McKenzie wrote. “We were in the process of bringing in about 1,200 Afghan National Strike Unit (NSU) personnel aboard HKIA […] They would prove to be invaluable in helping us establish security on the ground.”
One U.S. military officer at HKIA told investigators that, at first, departing aircraft were filled with half Afghan evacuees and half U.S. citizens, but the Zero Units ended up needing 33% of all aircraft seats. He said this was necessary because the U.S. military needed the Zeroes to secure the perimeter.
Brigadier General Farrell J. Sullivan reportedly told investigators the deal with the Zeroes put the mission at risk, and said that, when he found out about it, he told Vasely that they couldn’t rely on C-17s alone to evacuate everyone. He said they needed to get the CRAF involved. “We had to get these evacuees to Germany because that volume would overwhelm our temporary safe havens.”
The general said that “the risk to not getting the NSU and their families out was that they would turn on us as we approached the end of the evacuation.”
In the book The Fight of His Life: Inside Joe Biden’s White House, written by journalist Chris Whipple, more details on the Zero Units during the NEO were revealed.
A senior Biden Pentagon official allegedly told the author: “We were trying to run a plane out of there every forty-eight minutes at the height of this thing. And we were just jamming people on these C-17s as much as we could. And there were days when we couldn’t get more people through the gates because the CIA kept pushing people of their own. They wanted them out. We wanted to do what we could to help, but it threw us back. And there were days when we couldn’t let others in the gate because we were helping them.”
The Pentagon reportedly “couldn’t get answers from the CIA about its evacuees” and Whipple's book recounted that Austin “was furious and vented his frustration with White House advisers.”
The end of the CIA’s Eagle Base
The Zero Units had long operated alongside the CIA at Eagle Base — a secretive compound to the northeast of Kabul — and the Zeroes and, according to The Intercept, the U.S. spy agency continued operating out of the base during the NEO. The Taliban allegedly agreed not to attack Eagle Base during the evacuation.
The New York Times reported that “there was already a large [Zero Unit] force at Eagle Base, the CIA’s paramilitary compound in northern Kabul, which the Taliban had agreed not to attack during the evacuation; the agency had helped rescue some of the units; others made their own way to the airport.”
The use of Eagle Base allowed U.S. special forces and CIA operatives to avoid the huge crowds and the violent Taliban guards at HKIA by flying people into the Kabul airport by helicopter instead. Public flight data reportedly showed that an American company operated helicopters which ferried U.S. citizens and Afghan commandos from the CIA base to the airport across town.
The CIA base was largely destroyed by the agency on August 27, 2021. The Taliban quickly took it over. The Intercept reported that Taliban fighters took control of Eagle Base within days of the CIA abandoning the base in late August 2021.
Analysis of satellite imagery and active fire data reportedly showed how the Eagle Base was dismantled and largely demolished before the final U.S. exit from Afghanistan. Taliban commander Mullah Hasnain, a leader of the Badri 313 unit, gave journalists a tour of the abandoned Eagle Base in early September 2021.
He was accompanied by Taliban fighters decked out in U.S. military gear and carrying American M-16s. Some of the Badri 313 were reportedly wearing a similar tiger-stripe pattern as the fatigues worn by the Zeroes, and one of the abandoned dormitories still contained Zero unit uniforms hung on the walls and strewn on the ground.
Zero Units tied to the CIA
The Washington Post reported that the Zero Units “were officially incorporated into the Afghan government’s National Directorate of Security intelligence agency in 2009, though the CIA still advised the fighters on thousands of missions carried out with U.S. military logistical support.”
The Intercept reported that “in 2010, the Afghan government signed an agreement with the CIA to turn the NSUs into a joint program with Afghanistan’s former intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security, or NDS.” The outlet cited two former Afghan officials when reporting that “while the missions would be jointly run, the units continued to be funded exclusively by the U.S. government.”
“Quite frankly, I’m not fully aware … of how they work,” Afghan national security adviser Hamdullah Mohib reportedly told the outlet in 2019. “We’ve asked for clarification on how these operations happen, who are involved, what are the structures of this. When they were set up, why are they not in Afghan control?”
The outlet also reported that “just after President Joe Biden took office in January [2021], the CIA gave the NDS one year’s budget and said the agency would no longer support Zero units or continue funding them.”
U.S. news outlets such as The New York Times, The Intercept, and ProPublica did stories detailing alleged human rights abuses carried out by the Zero Units. Human rights groups like Human Rights Watch published reports on alleged executions carried out by the Zero Units.
CIA parries "false narrative"
The CIA has repeatedly pushed back against criticism of the Zero Units that has been leveled by the Taliban and by human rights organizations.
“With regard to allegations of human rights abuses made against foreign partners, the U.S. takes these claims very seriously and works to strengthen accountability and adherence to human rights standards,” the CIA previously told Rolling Stone. “We are aware of a persistent false narrative regarding their alleged activities.”
A spokesperson for the CIA also previously told NBC News that the U.S. takes allegations of human rights abuses “very seriously” and that the agency carries out “extraordinary measures, beyond the minimum legal requirements to reduce civilian casualties in armed conflict and strengthen accountability for the actions of partners.” The CIA spokesperson added that “a false narrative exists about these forces that has persisted over the years due to a systemic propaganda campaign by the Taliban.”
Mike Barry, who served as a senior U.S. intelligence officer in South Asia, wrote an article in 2022 praising the Zero Units and their actions at HKIA: “These men and women are the Afghans who stayed in Kabul to that very last day in August of 2021 to ensure that American diplomats, American citizens, third country diplomatic personnel and the scores of civilian aid workers on the ground could escape the Taliban as they seized hold of the country and turned the clock back to the repression of the 1990s.”
Then-CIA Director William Burns spoke at Georgia Tech in March 2022, where he seemed to reference the deal to evacuate the Zero Units, without providing many specifics.
“In Kabul, late last August, I saw our officers take incredible risks, going out beyond the wire at Kabul international airport to rescue stranded American citizens and at-risk Afghans, and thanks to their determination we fulfilled our profound obligation to our Afghan partners, and brought thousands of them to safety in this country,” Burns said.
“In my office in Langley, Virginia, across the Potomac from Washington, I have a photograph that I often reflect upon. It shows a bare wall and a building at Kabul airport, with thousands of black check marks — a tally of all the lives our officers saved in those perilous days at the end of August — each one a reminder that we did our duty. There is another wall that I pass every day as I come through the lobby of CIA — it’s the memorial wall, the most hallowed place at our agency.”
Lakanwal said to not be cooperating with law enforcement agencies
Many of the Zeroes were evacuated to Qatar in August 2021, where the CIA then sought to move them to the United States, though some were housed in the United Arab Emirates too. The Zeroes were then flown to Ramstein Air Base in Germany and to U.S. military bases in the United States before being resettled across the country.
Lakanwal, one of those Afghan fighters, stands accused of premeditated murder against members of the U.S. military with whom he had ostensibly allied himself with for years.
As of publication time, he has not entered a formal plea in response to the upgraded charge of first-degree murder; he previously pleaded not guilty to the initial assault charges. The Times of India reported that the Lakanwal family had been living in the Bellingham area of Washington State and that the former fighter is not cooperating with law enforcement agencies.
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/cia-cut-evac-deal-bringing-afghan-zero-unit-fighters-including-national-guard
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