By Asif Shahzad
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) -Pakistan highlighted its counterterrorism cooperation with Washington after the arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah, whom it blames for a 2021 attack on U.S. troops at Kabul airport, in a military operation along the border with Afghanistan.
“We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday, hours after U.S.
President Donald Trump thanked the country for the arrest, adding Sharifullah was on his way to the United States.
The United States has charged Sharifullah with helping plan the attack and a hearing was scheduled for him in a federal court in Virginia on Wednesday, according to the U.S.
Department of Justice.
The 2021 bombing at Kabul airport killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 U.S. soldiers as they sought to help Americans and Afghans flee in the chaotic aftermath of the Taliban takeover.
The attack was claimed by ISIS-K, the Afghan branch of the Islamic State group.
The U.S. Justice Department has charged Sharifullah with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources” to ISIS-K.
“He confessed. This was the planner of that bombing,” White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said in an interview with Fox News.
Sharifullah is in U.S.
custody, FBI Director Kash Patel said in a post on X alongside a picture of agents standing in front of the plane that he was due to arrive on.
Pakistan had launched an operation along its Afghan border to capture Sharifullah, whom Sharif described as an Afghan national and top commander for Islamic State Khorasan.
“We thank U.S. President Donald Trump for acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support in counterterrorism efforts,” Sharif added in another statement.
A spokesman for Afghanistan’s Taliban government said that “the issue is unrelated to Afghanistan” and that the Taliban was also fighting the Islamic State.
Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, had spoken with U.S. national security adviser Mike Waltz on Tuesday, according to a Pakistani foreign office statement.
Dar “reiterated that Pakistan looked forward to building on its longstanding and broad-based relationship with the United States under President Trump and his administration”, it said.
SHIFTING TIES
Perennially shifting relations between Islamabad and Washington had been soured by concerns about Pakistan’s alleged support of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
Although Pakistan denies such support, its links with Washington have frayed, while arch-rival India has gained greater influence.
“This is a significant development in that U.S.-Pakistan ties have been in an unsettled state in the nearly four years since the U.S.
exit from Afghanistan,” said Michael Kugelman, Director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
A Pakistani security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Sharifullah’s arrest was part of wide-ranging joint counterterrorism efforts.
“Excellent cooperation has been established between Pakistan and President Trump’s new government,” the official added.
The U.S. Justice Department said it had caught Sharifullah with the help of the CIA and FBI, without naming Pakistan.
Islamabad is making use of concerns about regional security and counterterrorism “to engage with Trump, who otherwise has no interest in Pakistan”, said defence analyst Ayesha Siddiqa.
“For now (the arrest) is just to signal to the United States that Pakistan is there and can be relied upon as a partner.”
(Additional reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar in Kabul, Doina Chiacu and Susan Heavey in Washington; writing by Saad Sayeed and Charlotte Greenfield; editing by Clarence Fernandez, Alex Richardson, Alexandra Hudson and Mark Heinrich)
