Associated Press

A suspected participant in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians during the chaotic 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan arrived in the US on Wednesday to face criminal charges in connection with the attack.

Mohammad Sharifullah was taken into custody over the weekend and admitted during an FBI interrogation to being a member of the Islamic State’s affiliate in Afghanistan and to his role in the August 2021 suicide bombing and other attacks, according to US officials.

Donald Trump announced the arrest during his Tuesday night address to Congress, telling the audience that he was “pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity. And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice.”

Senior Pakistani intelligence officers on Wednesday confirmed the arrest and said Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, had been captured in the country’s restive south-west Balochistan province near the border with Afghanistan after multiple operations had failed to seize him.

Sharifullah is charged in federal court in Virginia with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, resulting in death. In court on Wednesday, he wore a light-blue jail jumpsuit and listened through headphones as an interpreter translated the proceedings. His public defender declined to comment after his court appearance, which ended with him being taken away for holding at least until a detention hearing set for Monday.

The Abbey gate bombing, in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country amid the withdrawal by US forces from the country, occurred in August 2021 when a suicide bomber attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport. In addition to 13 US service members, about 170 Afghans were killed in the attack, which triggered widespread congressional criticism and undermined public confidence in the Biden administration’s handling of the conclusion of the war.

According to an FBI affidavit filed as part of the case, Sharifullah admitted under questioning to having joined the Afghanistan-based Islamic State-Khorasan, also known as Isis-K, in 2016. He told investigators that he had been in prison from 2019 until about two weeks before the bombing, at which point he was contacted by another Isis-K member about helping in the attack, the affidavit said.

He was given a motorcycle, funds for a cellphone and a Sim card, as well as instructions for communicating via social media during the attack operation, prosecutors said. He admitted to participating in the Abbey gate attack by scouting a route to the airport for the bomber and communicating to other members of the militant group that the path was clear.

Sharifullah said he had been instructed to leave the area and later learned that the bombing had been done by an Isis-K operative he had met while jailed, the affidavit said.

The bomber was identified as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, an Islamic State militant who had been in an Afghan prison but was released by the Taliban as the group took control of the country that summer.

During his FBI interrogation, Sharifullah also said he had shared firearms and weapons instructions before a March 2024 attack at a Moscow concert hall that was also carried out by Isis-K and killed scores of people, authorities said.

Sharifullah was arrested in 2019 by the US-backed Afghan government at the time but escaped from prison on 15 August 2021, as the Taliban took Kabul.

The Pakistani officials said Sharifullah had planned the bombing from behind bars with other senior militant figures. They said he had remained on the run in the border areas of Balochistan until his arrest through a joint intelligence-sharing operation between Pakistan and the US.