Alleged National Guard shooter worked with US government entities in Afghanistan, including CIA: Ratcliffe.
Alleged National Guard shooter worked with US government entities in Afghanistan, including CIA: Ratcliffe. There's a bullet hole that went in and out of this planter here. Here's another planter. Jay's going to shoot you right up close.
And here's another planter that's been removed. I'm going to walk you over here to show you the young part of the planter that was removed.
The American flag here is part of the panel that was originally removed. And you can see additional bullet holes here. One here, one here.
And it looks like some of the evidence that authorities handled when they went into the scene last evening. So, in addition, we have new information from Jeanine Perro.
She's speaking today to the U.S. District Attorney General Colony. A series of shots. Listen to this. A lone gunman opened fire, unprovoked, in an ambush style, armed with a .357 Smith and Wesson revolver.
One guard is hit, goes down, and then the shooter ducks and shoots the guards again. The other guard shot both times. He is in critical condition at a local hospital.
We have reached out to the hospital to learn more about the surgeries and where they are being performed. The hospital has not responded to our inquiries.
As Boris and Omar reported, they have been identified as Sarah Backstrom, 20, and Andrew Wolf, 24. The two guardsmen who were shot yesterday were members of the Guard. Officials say they have been on the Guard since 2023.
Andrew Wolf has been on the Guard since 2019. Officials at the news conference said he was sworn in yesterday. We believe he was not sworn in as a new member of the Guard,
But as a U.S. deputy, which is what he is supposed to do every month. Back to you, guys. Brian Todd lives with us in Washington, D.C.
We hope to hear a positive update on these Guard members soon. CNN's senior national security reporter Zack Cohen will join us now.
Zack, tell us what you've learned about the suspect. Yes, we're learning a lot about his background. A 29-year-old Afghan national came to the United States in the second part of this program.
The Biden administration implemented after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. Now it seems that part of why he was allowed to come to the United States was because of his work with the US military and the CIA.
He was, we understand. He served in an elite counterterrorism unit that worked directly with US intelligence in Afghanistan, working with the Taliban and militant organizations.
And so thousands of people served in these roles, who were removed when the Taliban began to rise to power after the US left.
And it seems that was the basis for his immigration to the United States. Now, of course, once he got here, there were many layers of vetting and, uh, vetting. At first, he was allowed to come here temporarily.
But this is behind the CIA, and the intelligence community seems to have had a mechanism for his travel to the U.S. Obviously, there were a lot of Afghans who were still coming as part of this operation.
Yeah. By all accounts, it had to be very extensive. We know that in that initial process, he would have been vetted by the U.S. government, including the CIA. And then once he was granted temporary asylum,
He would have applied for various levels of vetting. Identity and background checks, biometric screening in personal interviews, and an assessment of the risk and eligibility of an individual under U.S. law.
So it has many layers. And it's important to remember the final approval. And his asylum application was granted in 2025 under the Trump administration. It was important in the context of all the president's policies.
That is the president's policy and background checks. People need to come in without a background check. Zach Cohen, thank you very much. Let's get some perspective now with Donal Aaron.
He's the former head of Homeland Security and Intelligence in Washington, D.C., and also a faculty member at Georgetown University. Thank you very much for disaster management.
Thanksgiving. We appreciate you sharing some time. I wonder what the review will be, as the president has said about every immigrant who entered the United States under the previous administration.
As we also learned that officials are going to put the immigration case on hold pending further review of Afghan costs. What does all of this mean? From interviews to interviews being asked anywhere.
About 100,000 people, depending on which reports you read. It's become very clear to the audience that, you know, these Afghans, asylum seekers, have committed crimes at such a low, low rate.
I couldn't find any major crimes committed by these people. These individuals and their family members helped save the lives of Americans overseas, and helped a lot of people, in fact.
Former service people are going to save them. Even after they're evacuated. What happens is that once these individuals go through this layered vetting process and they enter the United States,
They're free to move around the country at will. They're not monitored anymore. There's no surveillance state like they're being searched.
The process, and they'll have interviews throughout their process, and then they'll be a routine part of it, not enhanced vetting. What I think the administration is talking about now
It is a kind of advance vetting. Also, the other thing I want to mention is that when you interview these people, when they go through the vetting process, you're looking back,
right? You were already looking at their history, who was already involved in this. You can't predict the future with that. So that's the tricky part that the administration finds itself in.
Yeah, especially as we've seen so many cases of people being radicalized in different ways. If this is in fact terrorism, and that leads me to the next question?
How is it that the authorities accurately determine a motive because you have the administration saying it was terrorism, but the investigators will come together and show you the evidence?
Yes. The survivor, in the absence of the individual who is now in custody, is cooperating; all reports that he is not cooperating. They can still connect their background.
To whom they have contacted. You know, of course, you and I have been on this topic many, many times. There are always many of these people who are triggering the violence and the violence.
Breadcrumb trails. We call it leakage. They may have told someone, they may have told someone online, talked to someone, or shown some kind of signs.
There are always some kind of signs. People don't just wake up. Driving around the country with guns and shooting, uniformed service members wouldn't even be able to go there.
Cooperating. I want to go back to something you alluded to a moment ago, and that is the suspect's prior association with the U.S. government and its work in Afghanistan,
including with the CIA, according to the director, John Ratcliffe. How do you read that relationship? You know, everything I've read is open source,
You had to have a very high level of trust and service. Not connected to any secret, any top-secret unit with the CIA and Special Operations. Okay.
So they trusted this individual, potentially with their life, to make sure that they wouldn't give any information to the adversaries or what they were doing, their movements, or what they were looking for.
And so something has had to be tough in the last three years since he got on board. It's a really, really unprecedented, unprecedented word. Unprecedented use,
We just have to sit back and see how outrageous it is that someone would actually shoot American service members. I did some research before I came. I have never seen anything like this in my life,
And I am over 50 years old. And Donald Aaron, thank you very much for your perspective.
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