Exclusive | Americans who helped resettle Afghan allies feel ‘betrayed’ by suspected DC terrorist who was given safe haven

WASHINGTON — Alleged National Guard attack terrorist Rahmanullah Lakanwal betrayed the Americans who worked hard to save him and countless other Afghans from the Taliban and give them a new life in the US, the head of a group that has rescued numerous Afghans told The Post.

Shawn VanDiver, founder and president of #AfghanEvac, a US nonprofit run by American veterans helping to evacuate and resettle Afghan allies in the US said one man’s monstrous actions are now hurting all Afghans who risked their lives for the US in its 20-year war — and the shockwaves are hitting the Americans who helped them find safety.

“He betrayed everybody who helped him,” VanDiver said Thursday. “He betrayed his family. He betrayed every American that helped him get here. He betrayed the United States government. And he deserves to be held fully accountable.”

“But Afghan families did not do this,” he added, pushing back against attacks on other Afghans who have been resettled in the US.

Americans across the country stepped up beginning in August 2021, when Afghans fled the Taliban takeover. Volunteers provided rides to driving classes, helped navigate paperwork, found jobs, and in many cases opened their homes to families with nowhere to go, Van Diver said.

Now, Americans who helped settle Afghan allies in the US are the subject of some online rage for their efforts helping thousands of innocents resettle in America, VanDiver said.

“One deranged man taking insane action does not make a community,” he said.

He added that some political voices are rushing to use the tragedy to vilify Afghan evacuees broadly — an outcome he says plays directly into the attacker’s hands.

“People pushing this narrative are doing the shooter’s job for him,” he said. “If he had been born in Missouri, nobody would be punishing all of Missouri.”

The Afghan community and the volunteers who supported them are now terrified they’ll be blamed for something they had no part in, he said.

“They feel like they’re being targeted. They’re being marked for something they didn’t do,” the advocate said. “They gave so much out of their hearts to help wartime allies. Now they’re scared and grieving.”

Many volunteers fear the years they spent helping Afghan interpreters, drivers, and other wartime partners — people the US promised to protect — will now be erased by a single attacker’s actions.

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“It’s like in the military, where one person screws up and the whole platoon gets punished,” the advocate said. “There’s no good reason to do this other than to go after people they didn’t want here in the first place.”

He argued that the existing vetting system worked — and that genuine security comes from law enforcement and intelligence work, not blanket suspicion.

“Americans are safest when we stand with our allies, not against them,” he said. “Afghan families are our neighbors, classmates, coworkers. They deserve dignity and truth, not fear-mongering.”

Despite the vitriol, many Americans who helped resettle Afghan allies are continuing their work, though they’re shaken by the political firestorm now engulfing them, he said.

For now, volunteers and Afghan families are united in grief.

“They’re as mad as we are. They’re terrified of being blamed for something they had nothing to do with,” he said.

VanDiver argued that thousands of families came here seeking safety and stood by the U.S. as wartime partners — and one man’s betrayal doesn’t erase that.

“This individual alone is responsible for his crime,” the advocate said. “Not Afghan families. Not the volunteers. And not the community that believed in him.”