WASHINGTON, United States: A US federal jury has convicted an Afghan man of providing support to the Islamic State group in Afghanistan but failed to agree on the extent of his involvement in the deadly 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport.
Mohammad Sharifullah, a member of the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was convicted in Virginia on Wednesday of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organisation.
President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress last year, had described Sharifullah as the “top terrorist responsible” for the Kabul airport attack that killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 American troops.
The jury found Sharifullah guilty of conspiracy to provide support to ISK but deadlocked after two days of deliberations on the extent of his role in the Kabul airport suicide bombing.
The jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict that “the death of either a US Service member or an Afghan civilian, at the Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, 2021, resulted from that conspiracy.”
According to prosecutors, Sharifullah scouted out the route to the airport where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.
