A Daesh operative who allegedly helped carry out the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan appeared in a Virginia court on Wednesday.
Mohammad Sharifullah has confessed to scouting out the route to the airport, where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Afghan Taliban seized control of Kabul, the Justice Department said.
The blast at the Abbey Gate killed at least 170 Afghans as well as 13 US troops who were securing the airport’s perimeter.
Sharifullah appeared in a court in Alexandria, near the US capital Washington, wearing light blue prison garb and a black face mask. He was officially appointed a public defender and provided with an interpreter.Play Video
He did not enter a plea. His next appearance will be in the same courthouse on Monday, and he will stay in custody until then, the judge said.
Sharifullah — who the US says also goes by the name Jafar and is a member of the Daesh-Khorasan branch in Afghanistan — was detained by Pakistani authorities and brought to the US.
President Donald Trump triumphantly announced his arrest Tuesday in an address to Congress, calling him “the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity”.
Daesh-K militants gave Sharifullah a cellphone and a SIM card and told him to check the route to the airport, according to the Justice Departmen’s affidavit in the case.
When he gave it the all-clear, they told him to leave the area, it said.
“Later that same day, Sharifullah learned of the attack at HKIA described above and recognised the alleged bomber as a Daesh-K operative he had known while incarcerated,” the affidavit said, using an alternative acronym for the group.
