Last week’s deadly shooting of US service members patrolling the nation’s capital confirmed what American veterans like me who served in the war in Afghanistan have known for decades: Among Afghans, honor trumps loyalty, and even the closest ally can turn killer.
Army National Guard Spc. Sarah Beckstrom’s shooting death allegedly at the hands of an Afghan national who was cleared to work closely with US military personnel is hardly an anomaly.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal is just the latest supposedly highly vetted Afghan military partner accused of turning his weapon on American troops.
As a U.S. Army infantryman who led troops in Afghanistan, last week’s targeted shooting brought home painful memories.
He’s also just the latest Afghan transplant to resort to violence after struggling to assimilate in the United States.
As a U.S. Army infantryman who led troops in Afghanistan, last week’s targeted shooting brought home painful memories.
During my time in Afghanistan from 2012 to 2013, a key cause of death for US troops came from so-called Green on Blue incidents, or “insider attacks,” where supposedly friendly Afghans ambushed allied troops, often in lone wolf attacks.
Nearly 150 coalition service members, mostly Americans, were killed in Afghanistan from insider attacks, with the majority of deaths occurring during later stages of the war, as Afghan forces assumed greater responsibility for security operations.
These were the good guys, the Afghans that US troops could supposedly trust to seize an enemy bunker or protect their flank in an assault.
Very often, the motives behind these attacks were psychological.
Typically, the insiders weren’t Taliban turncoats or ideological jihadists, but low-ranking, exceptionally poor soldiers who used violence when they felt insulted or disrespected by international troops.
In a shame and honor-based society, the barracks-square discipline that Western militaries impose on rank-and-file soldiers could provoke violent reactions from Afghan recruits, who might view shouting or corrective physical training as grave insults.
In other cases, attacks resulted from simple cultural misunderstandings. This eventually prompted the distribution of a “Brochure for Understanding the Culture of Coalition Forces” to Afghan troops, which urged them not to take offense at Western soldiers who blow their noses in public, place their boots on a table or inquire about an Afghan’s wife or children.
The impact was negligible, considering 90% of Afghan soldiers couldn’t read.
If the coalition’s Afghan partners couldn’t be trusted to work with American military personnel, how could they be trusted to settle and live among American civilians?
If the coalition’s Afghan partners couldn’t be trusted to work with American military personnel, how could they be trusted to settle and live among American civilians?
So far, the experiment has been a disaster, with numerous criminal cases involving absurd cultural alibis on the part of Afghan defendants.
Mohammed Tariq, an evacuee who assisted US troops in Afghanistan, was found guilty in 2022 of sexually groping a 3-year-old at a refugee camp in Virginia.
He told police his actions were “part of his culture,” and he didn’t do anything wrong.
Alif Jan Adil, another Afghan transplant, was accused in 2022 of molesting a teenage child. He expressed remorse, but only after learning his behavior was unacceptable in the United States.
Despite enormous resources devoted to resettlement, Afghan refugees are struggling to find work, navigate the immigration system and adapt to a new lifestyle in America, and these issues — often compounded by post-traumatic stress stemming from time spent in military service — also contribute to violent outcomes among Afghan refugees.
Lakanwal, the alleged DC shooter, belonged to a secretive Afghan unit whose veterans have struggled to assimilate into American communities and suffer combat-related psychological issues.
His background mirrors that of Jamal Wali, a former interpreter who, in April shot and wounded two Fairfax, Va., police officers during a traffic stop after cursing “white people” and shouting, “I should have served with the f–king Taliban!”
In the rush to withdraw from Afghanistan, many evacuees received minimal vetting yet were eligible to apply for visas based on their status as “allies” who assisted coalition forces, according to a congressional memo.
However, the military’s process for screening and selecting these partners was flawed, an internal military inquiry found.
The truth is that Americans were never safe once they opened the door to nearly 200,000 Afghan refugees raised on an unwritten code of tribal honor and frontier justice.
The only foolproof method for vetting these immigrants is to deny entry altogether.
True public safety demands extreme re-vetting of those already here, and deportation for those who refuse to adapt.
President Trump’s decision to halt the rapid resettlement of high-risk aliens is welcome, but insufficient.
True public safety demands extreme re-vetting of those already here, and deportation for those who refuse to adapt.
Otherwise, the insider attacks that plagued us in Afghanistan will continue on American soil.
Published originally on December 5, 2025, under the title “National Guardsmen Shooting Spotlights the Danger of ‘Insider Attacks'—I Should Know.”
