Washington (AFP) – An Islamic State operative who allegedly planned the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal has been arrested, President Donald Trump has said. The bomber detonated a device among packed crowds as they tried to flee Afghanistan, killing 170 Afghans and 13 US troops securing the perimeter, days after the Taliban seized control of the capital.
In his first address to Congress since returning to the White House, Trump announced on Tuesday that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.” The Justice Department named the man as Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, and said he is expected to appear in a Virginia court on Wednesday. Sharifullah, who is a leader of the Islamic State Khorasan branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, has been charged with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday the operative admitted to FBI Special Agents “to helping prepare” for the attack, “including scouting a route near the airport for an attacker.” “This evil ISIS-K terrorist orchestrated the brutal murder of 13 heroic Marines,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. Sharifullah also admitted to involvement in several other attacks, the Justice Department said, including the March 2024 Moscow Crocus City Hall attack in which he said “he had shared instructions on how to use AK-style rifles and other weapons to would-be attackers.”
In Tuesday’s speech, Trump took a swipe at his predecessor Joe Biden’s oversight of the “disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan” and thanked Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster.” The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to Kabul’s airport in the hope of boarding a flight out of the country. Images of crowds storming the airport, climbing atop aircraft — and some clinging to a departing US military cargo plane as it rolled down the runway — aired on news bulletins around the world.
In April 2023,
© 2024 AFP
