National Guardsman Recovering Following Being Shot in Washington DC

A member of the Air National Guard is showing improvement after he was critically injured in an ambush-style shooting last month in the US capital.

The family of Andrew Wolfe, 24, say "the injury to his head is slowly healing and that he's beginning to 'regain his familiar appearance,'" said West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey.

The family anticipates the Air Force staff sergeant to be in intensive treatment for the coming fortnight, and they feel optimistic about his progress, said the governor.

Staff Sgt Wolfe was one of two West Virginia National Guard members injured by gunfire when a shooter began shooting in proximity to the White House on 26 November. His fellow guardsmember, twenty-year-old Sarah Beckstrom, succumbed to her wounds.

"We continue to ask all West Virginians and Americans for their prayers!" the governor said.

The governor attended a vigil on Friday evening for the injured soldier at Musselman High School in his hometown, where the guardsman was once a pupil.

A clergyman at the vigil shared a message from the guardsman's mother and father, his family.

"It is clear to us that there is a long road to go," they expressed, according to regional media outlets.

"However our faith keeps us hopeful. We remain thankful for the prayers and the encouragement from people all over the world."

Earlier in the week, the state official said Staff Sgt Wolfe had responded to a nurse with a positive gesture and was capable of wiggle his feet.

Police have charged the suspected shooter, an Afghan national named Rahmanullah Lakanwal, with premeditated homicide and attempted murder.

Before coming to the United States in two years ago, he was once a member of a special forces unit in a CIA-backed unit that operated alongside American troops in the South Asian nation.

The injured airman was one of two thousand militia personnel whom President Donald Trump deployed to the nation's capitol in last summer as part of his immigration and crime-related crackdown in urban centers.

Following the shooting, Trump said he desired an additional five hundred National Guard troops sent to the District of Columbia.

The former presidential office has also cited the shooting as a reason for further immigration crackdown measures.

They have cancelled all citizenship ceremonies for foreign nationals from 19 countries that were part of a entry restriction implemented over the summer, among them the suspect's home country.