Key points
- Luqmaan Khan arrested for illegal firearms possession
- US halts asylum decisions for high-risk countries
- Pakistan warns of rising militancy linked to Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign office stated on Thursday that a man charged in the US with illegally possessing firearms and carrying a notebook detailing attack method and a layout of a police station was Afghan, contradicting US media reports that linked him to Pakistan.
Luqmaan Khan, 25, was arrested on November 24 after police in New Castle County found him parked after hours in Canby Park West. They later discovered several loaded Glock magazines, an armoured ballistic plate, and a handwritten notebook discussing attack strategies and entry points to a University of Delaware police facility, according to a statement from the US Attorney’s Office for Delaware this week.
Several US media outlets described Khan as being of “Pakistan-origin.”
“According to our investigations, he is an Afghan national. He lived in Pakistan as a refugee for several years with his family before moving to the US,” Pakistan Foreign Office spokesperson Tahir Andrabi told the media.
Afghan authorities have not yet commented on Khan’s nationality.
This arrest follows less than two weeks after another incident involving Rahmanullah Lakanwal, an Afghan asylee accused of shooting two US National Guard soldiers on November 26. One of the injured soldiers later died.
Asylum decisions
In response to this incident, the US Citizenship and Immigration Services halted asylum decisions for migrants from 19 “high-risk” countries, including Afghanistan, a policy shift introduced after the shooting and approved by the Trump administration.
Pakistan has consistently argued that militancy linked to Afghan networks is often wrongly attributed to Pakistan due to decades of refugee movement, and last year, Islamabad began a nationwide expulsion of undocumented Afghans.
Pakistan has long raised concerns about increasing militancy and radicalisation linked to Afghanistan following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021.
