President Joe Biden's administration allegedly ignored counter-terrorism warnings and admitted Afghans with suspected terrorist links into the United States following the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan.
A senior intelligence official told The Telegraph that over 1,000 Afghans with ties to Islamic State (IS) and other terror groups were flagged during the Biden Administration's Operation Allies Welcome.
However, the Biden White House “prioritized mass migration over security,” and disregarded warnings from officials in his administration who “identified terrorist threats."
Critics argue that Special Immigrant Visas for Afghan nationals were inappropriately issued for resettlement purposes by the previous administration.
That figure has since been revised upward to 2,000 by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), representing roughly two-thirds of the 3,000 “known jihadists” reportedly in the United States.
Standard background check procedures were suspended, due to the immediate need to evacuate Afghan allies following the fall of Afghanistan to the resurgent Taliban, according to officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) and the NCTC.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general report from Sept. 2022 confirmed that Customs and Border Protection (CBP) allowed improperly vetted Afghans into the country.
The DHS inspector general office acknowledged that the rushed decision by the Biden White House left immigration officials without critical data to properly vet Afghan evacuees, such as names, dates of birth, or travel documents.
“We also determined CBP [Customs and Border Patrol] admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States,” according to the report.
In June, the FBI further confirmed that standard security vetting processes were dropped to quicken the evacuation process from Afghanistan and that "the normal processes required to determine whether individuals posed a threat to national security and public safety were overtaken by the need to immediately evacuate and protect the lives of Afghans."
These revelations come after Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan who once served with American military and intelligence services, shot and killed one National Guard soldier and critically injured another in Washington, D.C.
Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died from her injuries on Thanksgiving, while Andrew Wolfe, 24, is still recovering in a hospital and expected to survive.
The Afghan terrorist shouted "Allahu Akbar” before shooting the two National Guard soldiers. he was subdued and taken into custody, according to court documents.
Lakanwal was granted a Special Immigrant Visa by the Biden administration, but appears to have become a jihadist radical after settling in Bellingham, Washington.
One day before the shooting in D.C., officers arrested Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, another Afghan national who allegedly posted a video on social media about building a bomb.
Last week, ICE arrested Jaan Shah Safi, an illegal alien from Afghanistan who is an alleged supporter of the Islamic State and a supplier of weapons to his father, a militia commander in Afghanistan.
Joe Kent, director of the NCTC, told Congress last week that Lakanwal never underwent the proper vetting required before arriving here and that the “number one threat” right now is that “we don’t know who came into our country in the last four years of Biden’s open borders," citing the admission of 85,000 Afghans without rigorous screening.
He added that “incidents like this aren’t isolated – they’re the predictable outcome of prioritising speed and volume over security.”
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said she will seek the death penalty for Lakanwal if he is convicted of first-degree murder.
The Biden administration claimed that all Afghan nationals who arrived in the U.S. were screened in coordination with intelligence and law enforcement agencies, contrary to the critical watchdog reports and intelligence sources.
Biden Administration officials responsible for the vetting have yet to comment or have remained silent when questioned about the Afghan refugee program following recent attacks.
Trump Administration counter-terrorism officials are now attempting to re-vet Afghan nationals who entered under Biden and have passed on a list of those with links to known or suspected terrorists to DHS.
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