Two West Virginia National Guard members who deployed to the nation’s capital were shot Wednesday just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence that the mayor described as a targeted attack.

FBI Director Kash Patel and Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said they were hospitalized in critical condition.

The rare shooting of National Guard members comes as the presence of the troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has been a flashpoint issue for months, fueling court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.