One of the ISIS-K terrorists allegedly involved in the planning of the Abbey Gate bombing, which claimed the lives of 13 U.S. service members, was recently captured by Pakistani authorities, according to President Donald Trump.
The bombing, which mired the Biden administration, occurred just days before the U.S. military withdrew from Afghanistan, ending its 20-year war. Roughly 170 people were killed in the bombing, which occurred outside the airport gates where U.S. forces were conducting emergency evacuations.
"Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorists responsible for that atrocity, and he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice," the president said during his address in front of Congress on Tuesday night.
Mohammad Sharifullah, the alleged ISIS-K terrorist with ties to the bombing, was apprehended by Pakistani officials late last month, according to a White House official. U.S. law enforcement interviewed him last weekend and he's currently on his way to the United States, the official added.
The CIA had been monitoring Sharifullah for some time but received specific intelligence about his location in recent days, according to a different U.S. official. The CIA provided the intelligence to Pakistani intelligence, which sent an elite unit to track him down. He was detained near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
The National Security Council and counterterrorism office at the White House "prioritized finding this individual on day one," the first official added.
“As President Trump just announced, I can report that tonight the FBI, DOJ, and CIA have extradited one of the terrorists responsible for the murder of the 13 American soldiers at Abbey Gate during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal,” FBI Director Kash Patel posted on X. “One step closer to justice for these American heroes and their families.”
The ISIS-K suicide bomber, identified as Abdul Rahman al Logari, had been held in the prison at Bagram before being released by the Taliban just days before the bombing.
Trump has a personal relationship with the Gold Star families of the U.S. troops that were killed in the bombing, nearly all of whom were critical of the previous administration. Many of them appeared at the Republican National Convention last summer.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said last week that the military could begin a new review of the withdrawal, though the department has not provided details on the inquiry.
HEGSETH: PENTAGON DOING 'COMPLETE REVIEW' OF AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL
“We’re doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened with the botched withdrawal of Afghanistan and plan to have full accountability,” he said. “We’re taking a very different view, obviously, than the previous administration, and there will be full accountability.”
The Biden administration announced in April that the Taliban had killed an ISIS leader suspected of planning the bombing, though it did not identify the suspect by name.