(NewsNation) — Counterterrorism Chief Sebastian Gorka told NewsNation that the suspect in the Kabul airport bombing confessed to the attack, which killed 13 American service members during the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan.
The suspected senior planner, identified as Mohammad Sharifullah, has been taken into custody, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday.
Officials accuse him of being a member of the Islamic State group’s Afghanistan affiliate, known as ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, and say he admitted his role in that attack and others during an interview with FBI agents Sunday after being taken into custody.
“When he saw my team, he knew that the freedom he had enjoyed for far too long was over, and he will die in prison,” Gorka said during a Wednesday appearance on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
On Wednesday, senior Pakistani intelligence officers confirmed the arrest and said Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, was captured in the country’s restive southwest Balochistan province near the border with Afghanistan after multiple operations had failed to seize him. The officers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said Sharifullah had joined the militant group in 2016 and was involved in numerous attacks across Afghanistan.
Sharifullah is charged in federal court in Virginia with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, resulting in death. He will face a judge and be assigned a lawyer to speak on his behalf. Additional charges are possible as the case moves through the court system.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
