President Donald Trump announced charges against an alleged architect of multiple ISIS massacres, including the 2021 Kabul, Afghanistan attack that killed 13 U.S. military members, after making his arrest a top priority.
The president and his Department of Justice (DOJ) said American and Pakistani authorities captured ISIS-K terrorist Mohammad Sharifullah and were transferring him to the U.S. on the night of Trump’s Tuesday address to Congress. Sharifullah evaded arrest attempts under previous Democratic administrations after the August 2021 Kabul airport bombing, as well as other terror attacks in 2016 and 2024, the DOJ said.Â
A White House official said Trump’s National Security Council “prioritized finding this individual on day one” in comments to the Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Through increased interagency coordination and intelligence sharing with regional partners in recent weeks, Pakistani officials were [able] to find him,” the White House official said. Sharifullah “was extradited and landed in the U.S. early this morning to face justice for his crime,” the official told the DCNF.
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A DOJ affidavit says Sharifullah admitted his involvement in the Kabul attack, a 2016 attack on a Canadian embassy and another in 2024 that killed dozens in Moscow, Russia during an interview with FBI agents.
The Kabul airport attack involved an ISIS-K suicide bomber who killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians during the Biden administration’s chaotic exit from Afghanistan. Sharifullah told the FBI he “conducted surveillance” near the airport to notify other ISIS-K members of when and where to send the bomber, the DOJ’s filing says.
The Biden administration also left behind as many as 9,000 American citizens and over $7 billion worth of military equipment in Afghanistan and inadvertently gave the Taliban millions of dollars through foreign aid programs.
Sharifullah went on to provide training and preparation for the men who opened fire in a Moscow concert hall in March 2024, the DOJ said. That attack killed 137 people and wounded more than 180.
While former President Barack Obama was in office, Sharifullah helped plan a suicide bombing against a Canadian embassy in Kabul in June 2016, surveilling the target area beforehand and transporting the bomber, he allegedly told federal agents. The DOJ said ISIS-K mistook the 13 embassy guards it killed for U.S. personnel.
Sharifullah is charged with providing and conspiring to provide material support to terrorists resulting in death and could face life in prison if convicted.
Trump said he called family members of the Kabul attack victims to inform them of the arrest.
“Everybody was on the line and they did nothing but cry with happiness,” he told his audience during his address Tuesday. “They were very happy, as happy as you can be under those circumstances.”
Nick Pope contributed to this report.
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