A federal judge in Virginia has sentenced Mohammad Sharifullah, a 28-year-old member of the Islamic State affiliate ISIS-K, to 20 years in prison for providing material support to the terrorist organization. The sentencing, which took place on Wednesday, is tied to the group's deadly August 26, 2021, suicide bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport's Abbey Gate in Kabul, which killed 13 U.S. service members and approximately 160 Afghan civilians during the chaotic American military withdrawal.
Sharifullah received the maximum sentence for his single-count international terrorism conviction. While a federal jury convicted him in April of providing material support to ISIS-K, jurors were unable to reach a unanimous decision on whether he bore direct responsibility for the deaths at the airport. Had the jury agreed that deaths "resulted from" his conspiracy, Sharifullah could have faced a possible life sentence. Defense attorneys highlighted this in their sentencing memo, writing that "He was brought here because the government believed he participated in the Abbey Gate attack, a theory which it was unable to prove at trial."
Captured in early 2025 by Pakistani intelligence and the CIA near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, Sharifullah was extradited to the United States. His case was previously heralded by President Trump during a speech to a joint session of Congress last year. At his sentencing, Sharifullah chose not to testify or address the court. U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga, who imposed the sentence, described the defendant as a "dedicated terrorist" who showed no remorse for the "unfathomable" grief and suffering he caused.
During the hearing, Judge Trenga heard emotional victim impact statements from parents of the fallen U.S. service members, who spoke just feet from where Sharifullah sat. Mark Schmitz of Missouri, whose 20-year-old son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, was killed in the blast, asked Sharifullah to look at him as he spoke. Schmitz remarked, "They may have taken his life, but they'll never take his legacy. A bomb killed my son. It did not kill what he stood for." Paula Knauss-Selph, mother of Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Knauss, who also died at Abbey Gate, stated that her family was "forever changed" and added, "No justice will ever be enough to mend my broken heart."
Prosecutors painted a picture of a defendant whose actions were fueled by deep animosity. "From his teenage years, when he pledged an oath of allegiance to ISIS-K, Sharifullah's carnage was driven by hate. Hate towards Americans," they wrote in their sentencing memo. They also noted that Sharifullah had once told a journalist he wanted to "catch and kill the crusaders" from the U.S. following the invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks. Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg stated on Wednesday that Sharifullah "spent nearly a decade at the heart of a horrific campaign of terror, providing critical support for attacks against civilians around the world and, ultimately, contributed to the deaths of 13 U.S. servicemembers and dozens of others at Abbey Gate."
According to the Justice Department, Sharifullah's assistance extended to dozens of other attacks. His roles in those operations included providing surveillance, transporting weapons or suicide bombers, and communicating with attackers. Among these operations was a March 2024 assault on a Moscow concert hall that killed approximately 140 people, as well as a 2016 suicide bombing targeting security guards at the Canadian embassy in Kabul. In the hours leading up to the 2021 Kabul airport attack, prosecutors said Sharifullah scouted a route to the airport to watch for Taliban checkpoints. He "communicated to ISIS-K leadership that the route was clear," and hours later, an ISIS-K operative named Abdul Rahman al-Logari detonated an improvised explosive device near Abbey Gate.
Sharifullah's defense team argued that the prosecution's case relied almost entirely on his own statements during hours of FBI questioning, with no other evidence linking him to the Kabul bombing. They asserted that Sharifullah told FBI agents what they wanted to hear because he feared being tortured in Pakistani custody, where his family was also detained. His lawyers described him not as an ISIS-K leader, but as a minor "conduit for messages passed between different actors in the organization." They added, "No evidence at trial linked Mr. Sharifullah to the [Abbey Gate] attack, besides his own statements made while his family was detained by Pakistani authorities known to torture detainees."
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