Pakistan’s arrest of a suspected Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) operative and his extradition to the United States signals renewed counterterrorism cooperation between the two countries, experts said.
The United States accuses Mohammad Sharifullah, a suspected senior member of IS-K, the Afghanistan branch of Islamic State, of helping plan the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport that killed 13 American soldiers and 170 Afghans.
Sharifullah is due to appear in a U.S. federal court on March 5. He has been charged with providing “material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization resulting in death” and faces life in prison.
Pakistan said Sharifullah, also known as Jafar, was arrested recently in the country’s southwestern province of Balochistan, near the border with Afghanistan. It came after Pakistani intelligence reportedly received a tip from the CIA.
Islamabad’s strategic importance has waned since the US and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
But Sharifullah’s capture and extradition is “a very notable development,” said Lucas Webber, senior threat intelligence analyst at Tech Against Terrorism, an UN-backed project that monitors extremism online.
Webber said it could point to “signs of more coordination to come between the two countries.”
US President Donald Trump thanked Islamabad “for helping arrest this monster” during his State of the Union address on March 4.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked Trump for recognizing his country's role in counterterrorism efforts and pledged to “continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability.”
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud, news director at the Khorasan Diary, a website tracking militant groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan, said Pakistan’s handover of Sharifullah is a significant boost to relations between Washington and Islamabad.
“It gave Trump something to showcase during an important occasion,” he said.
‘Major Event’
Based in Afghanistan, IS-K has carried out deadly attacks against the Taliban, which seized power in 2021.
The extremist group has also staged a series of devastating, high-profile assaults in Russia, Iran, and Tajikistan in recent years.
Webber said Sharifullah’s capture is a “major event in the U.S. fight against IS-K.”
Pakistani officials said Sharifullah is an Afghan citizen, a claim rejected by the Taliban government.
U.S. officials said Sharifullah admitted to being a member of IS-K and to his role in the August 2021 bombing, one of the deadliest attacks of the entire 19-year U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.
Sharifullah also confessed to training the suspected IS-K militants involved in the March 2024 attack on a concert hall outside Moscow that killed around 140 people, according to the Justice Department.
The department said he also played a role in a deadly attack on the Canadian Embassy in Kabul in 2016, which killed 10 guards.
“IS-K is highly multifaceted, expanding its operational cells and networks,” said Webber. “It's a very dynamic, robust, internationally reaching organization and poses a serious threat.”
