Mohammad Sharifullah, who has been connected with the August 2021 Abbey Gate suicide bombing at the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, was ordered to be held in custody Wednesday after being extradited to the United States. The attack killed 13 American service members and about 170 Afghans during the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan.
Sharifullah appeared at an initial hearing in federal court in Alexandria, Virginia, Wednesday afternoon. A formal detention hearing was scheduled for Monday.
Wearing a blue jail jumpsuit, Sharifullah was told in court that he’ll face a potential life sentence in prison if convicted of conspiracy to provide material support of a foreign terrorist organization. Sharifullah used an interpreter to communicate with the judge. Attorneys argued he has no assets and needs a federal public defender.
Following Wednesday’s hearing, FBI Director Kash Patel posted a photo of Sharifullah in custody to social media.
U.S. officials said Sharifullah was one of two masterminds involved in the planning of the bombing. He is described as a regional Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K, commander.
A senior defense official told CBS News that Sharifullah was captured roughly 10 days ago in a joint raid between Pakistani intelligence and the Central Intelligence Agency.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said in a statement that the operation was conducted in the Pakistan-Afghan border region.
President Trump announced the arrest in his address Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, and thanked the Pakistani government.
Axios was first to name Sharifullah.
CBS News spoke with a senior Taliban official who said, “Right now, we have two Tajik nationals named Sharifullah in … custody. They have been sentenced to long-term imprisonment and were involved in the 2021 Abbey Gate bombing … and others attacks. We are not aware of any Afghan national named Muhammad Sharifullah. The only individuals with that name in Kabul are the two Tajikistani nationals in our custody.”
According to the Pentagon, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at an entrance to the airport, where thousands of people had been gathering daily as they tried to flee the city after it fell to the Taliban.
Then-President Biden had vowed revenge following the attack, saying, “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.”
Mr. Trump had fiercely criticized both Biden and then-Vice President Kamala Harris over how the withdrawal was handled while on the campaign trail. The president again lambasted his predecessor for the withdrawal during Tuesday’s address to Congress, even claiming it led to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Department of Defense in a 2024 review identified the bomber as Abdul Rahman al-Logari, who it said was also affiliated with ISIS-K. That review upheld previous findings from the department that the bombing “could not have been preventable at the tactical level.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mohammad-sharifullah-abbey-gate-afghanistan-bombing-extradited-u-s/
