Photo: Alamy
Federal authorities said Wednesday that an Afghan national brought to the United States through a 2021 resettlement program under the Biden administration has been arrested in Virginia on allegations that he provided support to ISIS-K and supplied weapons to his father, described by officials as a militia commander in Afghanistan.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations division took Jaan Shah Safi into custody in Waynesboro, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
“Today, our heroic ICE officers arrested Jaan Shah Safi, a terrorist who provided material support to ISIS-K. The Biden administration brought this terrorist into the U.S. under the disastrous Operation Allies Welcome program,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said.
“This terrorist was arrested miles from our nation’s capital where our brave National Guard heroes, Sarah Beckstrom and Andrew Wolfe, were shot just days ago by another unvetted Afghan terrorist brought into our country,” she said.
According to DHS, Safi entered the country on Sept. 8, 2021, through Operation Allies Welcome, the federal program established to assist Afghan evacuees after the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. The agency said Safi later applied for temporary protected status, which became a DHS enforcement priority after the department moved to end TPS designations for Afghanistan in 2025.
“The Biden administration created one of the worst national security crises in American history,” Noem said, adding that officials “only” began determining the identities and intentions of evacuees once they were already in the United States. “President Trump has been working every day since January 20 to clean up this unmitigated national security crisis.”
Safi’s arrest comes after last week’s shooting of two West Virginia National Guard members near the Farragut West Metro station in Washington. Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died on Friday, while Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, remains in critical condition. Authorities identified the suspected gunman, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, as a 29-year-old Afghan national who also entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome.
One day after the attack, local officials and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Mohammad Dawood Alokozay in Fort Worth, Texas, on suspicion of making bomb threats. DHS said he also arrived in the United States through the same resettlement program.