Since President Donald Trump announced the shocking arrest of a man accused of taking part in the murder of 13 U.S. service members in Afghanistan on Tuesday, his top national security aide has repeatedly paraded the Biden administration, saying he doesn’t want the responsible person to go to trial.
The attack, carried out by ISIS-K suicide bombers, killed 170 Afghan civilians waiting outside Kabul Airport, near the entrance known as the “Monastery Gate.” Death was a symbol of the chaotic withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan in 2021.
Five former Biden administration officials and one of the current US officials say the capture of ISIS-K operative Mohammad Sharifullah was not just the job of the Trump administration. They say it was supported by years of joint information efforts by the US and Pakistan targeting ISIS-K, the Afghan chapter of the Islamic State, particularly Sharihula.
“This didn’t happen overnight,” said former senior Biden administration national security authorities. “This is the pinnacle of a very intentional effort.”
Asked about the allegations, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump administration’s National Security Council, dismissed it.
“This arrest and extradition was made possible because the Trump administration focused on the incident,” he said in a statement.
CIA director John Ratcliffe also praised the Trump administration. “Remember, the Biden administration had that three and a half years to do this. He said in an interview with Fox News Wednesday, “They didn’t hold anyone accountable.”
National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told Fox News: “Three years later, the Biden administration couldn’t bring this man to court. In a month, he landed overnight through the great work of Ratcliffe (attorney general) Pam Bondi (FBI director) Kash Patel through the Intel shared relationship.”
But former Biden national security officials and two U.S. defense secretaries said the Biden administration had strengthened intelligence report sharing with Pakistan many months ago and built an intelligence sharing cell designed to target ISIS-K members who live along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. They said the capture this weekend was the result of those efforts.
General Michael “Eric” Kurira, the US Central Commander, visited Pakistan several times in recent years, playing an important role in strengthening relationships and intelligence sharing.
Last summer, Pakistani security forces arrested a man with the same name along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, but two former officials said, just to find out that there was a wrong man. “We were particularly focused on this guy,” one official said.
Ratcliffe said he highlighted the incident with Pakistani officials on his second day in his work as CIA director. However, he believed he had arrested Trump himself.
“It’s the Trump effect,” Ratcliffe said of the Fox business. “Where I go, everyone I’m talking to, our foreigners, allies, and even our problematic partners, want to do more in the US. That’s the Trump effect.”
Former Biden administration officials praised the new administration for promoting sharing and spurring the intelligence news to find terrorists, but they also expressed the inconvenience that Trump aides accused them of negligence.
“It’s just wrong,” the person said.
The role of Sharihula in attacks
Trump also appeared to exaggerate Sharihula’s role in the attack, at least as explained in the FBI affidavit and the Department of Justice news release.
In a speech to Congress this week, Trump said Sharifler was the “top terrorist” in the bombing of the monastery.
“Tonight we are pleased to announce that we have just arrested a top terrorist responsible for the atrocities,” he said.
Kelly Burnett, whose son, Darrin “Taylor” Hoover, was killed in the attack, told NBC News that Trump said her Sharihula was one of the leading planners.
“The president came and said he had caught this guy, this terrorist. He said, ‘He’s not a mastermind, so I’m not going to call him a mastermind,” Burnett said. “He is pure evil you know. But he was the architect of the bombing.”
Justice Department prosecutors say in court documents that Sharihula had been in prison until two weeks before the bombing. He told the FBI that he was recruited after his release from prison and provided with motorcycles and cell phones.
“Sharifler has granted support for preparing for a monastery’s gate attack, including scouting routes near the airport for attackers,” says a Justice Department news release summarizing court documents. “Sharifllah specifically checked law enforcement agencies and US or Taliban checkpoints. He then told other ISIS-K members that he believed the route was clear and that no attackers were detected.”
Court documents also say he confessed that he had participated in other terrorist attacks in Moscow and Kabul. ISIS-K, short for ISIS-Khorasan, is a derivative of the group that emerged in Syria and Iraq over a decade ago as ISIS.
In April 2023, the Taliban killed ISIS-K figures, which were called the mastermind’s ringleaders of the monastery’s gate attacks in April 2023, without US involvement, Biden administration officials said at the time.
