Tam Hussein writes:

On the eve of Thanksgiving last year, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan who had once served alongside U.S. Special Forces, drove across the United States and opened fire on two National Guard members posted near the White House, killing one and critically wounding another. Authorities described the attack as an ambush. Lakanwal himself was injured during the shootout and taken to hospital. He is now facing a first-degree murder charge with the death penalty on the cards. The Donald Trump administration is reportedly still mulling deporting his wife and children back to Afghanistan while visas for Afghan nationals, including those who served alongside U.S. forces, remain suspended.

Initially, the shooting appeared to fit the pattern of a lone-wolf attack connected to the Islamic State group. But as investigators delved deeper into Lakanwal’s past, a different, more confused picture emerged — one that cuts to the very heart of America’s decades-long war in Afghanistan and the parallel security structures it built there. The truth was that Lakanwal was one of America’s own. His fellow commandos were so trusted that they served alongside Green Berets, and so formidable that the Taliban demanded they leave — all 10,000 or so of them — following the conquest of Kabul in 2021.

Lakanwal had served with one of Afghanistan’s most elite and secretive paramilitary formations, the Zero Units, which were developed, funded and directed by the CIA. A senior official from Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) put it plainly: “They were part of NDS only on paper. They were recruited, financed, trained and directed by the CIA. Even the background checks were done by the Americans.”

As a young recruit, Lakanwal joined Zero 3, the Kandahar-based strike unit, around 2011, when he was just 16. Over the next decade, the young man participated in night raids, intelligence collection and counterinsurgency operations across southern Afghanistan. He was also among the forces that helped secure Kabul airport during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal in August 2021. He and his family left when the Afghan republic collapsed with the departure of its last president, Ashraf Ghani.

Yet life in America did not go well. He went from being in a highly trained military unit to menial work and struggling to hold down a job or learn English in supplementary classes. In Afghanistan, he was respected; in America, he was nobody. Some characterized him as a joyful, solitary figure who played Call of Duty and FIFA. His case worker described him as a manic depressive whose mental condition had deteriorated. He holed up for days in a lightless room. He drank and underwent dark phases of suicidal depression, with long, purposeless drives to nowhere. Many suspected post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Many of our comrades were struggling with depression and feeling hopeless,” said Nasir Andar, a Zero Unit veteran. Suicide was common among Afghan commandos, added Gen. Mohammad Shah, a former commander. Did Lakanwal finally crack when he carried out his attack? Or perhaps he was a symptom of a deeper dysfunction? Was he a product of the political and moral entanglement between the United States and the Afghan republic? To understand how a teenage recruit from Kandahar became part of one of the most secretive forces in the U.S. war in Afghanistan, one has to understand the unit itself — and the shadow system that created it.

The CIA has been active in Afghanistan for nearly five decades: from the Texan Rep. Charlie Wilson facilitating the CIA-led Operation Cyclone, arming the mujahideen with Stinger missiles in the ’80s, to CIA spymaster Cofer Black’s Jawbreaker team turning up in northern Afghanistan with a fistful of dollars, 1 million to be exact, offering it to Northern Alliance commanders following 9/11 with instructions to put Bin Laden’s “head in a box.”

The Afghan National Strike Unit to which the Zero Units belonged was heir to that history. Media reports have likened the unit to a new iteration of the Phoenix Program from the Vietnam War era, designed to neutralize insurgents and civilians with little accountability and few constraints. The units, spread across Kabul (Zero 1), Nangarhar (Zero 2) and Kandahar (Zero 3), along with others directly under NDS control, acted swiftly in their Toyota Hiluxes, collecting intelligence and carrying out counterinsurgency operations, sometimes crossing ethical and legal guidelines. They were effective but also left a trail of unjustifiable mistakes and dead bodies. [Continue reading…]