IS militant behind Kabul airport attack arrested

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 29: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks before signing the Laken Riley Act, the first piece of legislation passed during his second term in office, in the East Room of the White House on January 29, 2025 in Washington, DC. Jason Riley and Allyson Philips, the parents of 22-year-old Laken Riley, a University of Georgia nursing student who was murdered in 2024 by an undocumented immigrant, attended the signing ceremony. Among other measures, the law directs law enforcement authorities to detain and deport immigrants who are accused but not yet convicted of specific crimes, if they are in the country illegally. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images/AFP (Photo by CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / Getty Images via 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 said Tuesday.

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.

On Tuesday, in his first address to Congress since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump announced that Pakistan had assisted in the arrest of “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity.”

“And he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice,” he said, taking a swipe at his predecessor Joe Biden’s oversight of the “disastrous and incompetent withdrawal from Afghanistan”.

He thanked Pakistan “for helping arrest this monster” but gave no details of the suspect or the arrest operation.

The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan on August 31, 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.

Pakistani sources identified the suspect as Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, a leader of the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

US news platform Axios, citing two unidentified US officials, said Sharifullah was in the process of being extradited from Pakistan to the United States and was expected to arrive on Wednesday.

In April 2023, the White House announced that an Islamic State official involved in plotting the attack at the airport’s Abbey Gate had been killed in an operation by Afghanistan’s new Taliban government.

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for “acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support” in counter-terrorism efforts in Afghanistan.

“We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” he wrote on social media platform X.

Pakistan’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, but militancy has rebounded in the border regions.

Islamabad accused Kabul of failing to root out militants sheltering on Afghan soil, a charge the Taliban government denies.

The regional chapter of the Islamic State group, known as the Islamic State Khorasan, has staged a growing number of bloody international attacks, including killing more than 140 at a Moscow concert hall and more than 90 in an Iranian bombing last year.

Michael Kugelman, South Asia Institute director at The Wilson Center, said on X that Pakistan was trying to “leverage US concerns about terror in Afghanistan and pitch a renewed security partnership.”

“Pakistan’s help catching the Abbey Gate attack plotter should be seen in this context,” he added.