US court sentences Afghan man Mohammad Sharifullah to 20 years for ISIS support
A judge in the United States has sentenced Mohammad Sharifullah, an Afghan national, to 20 years in prison for providing material support to ISIS, in a case linked to the deadly Aug. 26, 2021 attack at Kabul airport.
A federal jury in Virginia found him guilty in April of providing material support to ISIS, but could not reach a final conclusion on whether he played a direct role in the deaths of people in the Kabul airport attack.
US prosecutors said Sharifullah had scouted the route leading to Kabul airport before the attack. His lawyers, however, said he was not convicted for direct involvement in the bombing and that prosecutors had failed to prove a direct link between him and the attack.
The 28-year-old Sharifullah did not testify at trial and made no statement before sentencing. Judge Anthony Trenga ultimately handed him a 20-year prison term.
US prosecutors have also accused him of involvement in other attacks, including the 2024 assault on a concert hall in Moscow. His lawyers have denied those allegations and said statements attributed to their client during an FBI interrogation are unreliable.
In the Aug. 26, 2021 attack at Kabul airport, 13 US soldiers and about 160 Afghans were killed. The explosion took place in the final days of the US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, and ISIS claimed responsibility.
According to investigations by US Central Command, the suicide bomber in the attack was identified as Abdul Rahman Loghari, an ISIS member who, the command said, had been released from a prison in Afghanistan. Kabul airport had at that time become one of the main routes out of Afghanistan for thousands of people.
