Donald Trump.
Credit: Reuters Photo
New Delhi: Three weeks after joining Prime Minister Narendra Modi in nudging Islamabad to bring to justice perpetrators of the terrorist attacks in India, President Donald Trump has lauded Pakistan for helping arrest an ISIS-K operative for his role in a 2021 explosion that killed 13 United States soldiers in Afghanistan.
“I want to thank especially the government of Pakistan for helping arrest this monster,” Trump said in his address to the US Congress early on Thursday (Indian Standard Time), prompting Pakistan to quickly lap up the opportunity to whitewash its record of exporting terror to India.
Writing on X, Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked the US president for “acknowledging and appreciating” his nation’s “role and support in counter terrorism efforts across the region”. “As is well-known, Pakistan has always played a critical role in counterterrorism efforts aimed at denying safe havens to terrorists and militant groups the space to operate against any other country,” he added, subtly trying to use the US president’s words to contradict New Delhi’s allegations about Islamabad’s support to terrorism in India.
Acting on a tip-off from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) arrested Mohammed Sharifullah, a senior operational commander of the Islamic State of Iraq and ash-Sham-Khorasan Province (ISIS-K), near the country’s border with Afghanistan. Sharifullah had allegedly played a key role in planning the ISIS-K’s suicide bombing at Abbey Gate near the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on August 26, 2021, when the US was in the last phase of withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan. The Taliban had by then returned to power in Kabul, after wresting control of almost the entire Afghanistan. The blast had killed 13 US soldiers and 169 Afghan civilians.
“Tonight, I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity, and he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice,” Trump said in his address to a joint session of the US Congress.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is likely to present him before the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia soon.
Sharifullah is a citizen of Afghanistan and, according to the US Justice Department, had also been involved with the June 20, 2026, terrorist attacks on the Embassy of Canada in Kabul. He had trained two of the four terrorists who had been arrested after the attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow on March 22, 2024.
“As is well-known, Pakistan has always played a critical role in counterterrorism efforts aimed at denying safe havens to terrorists and militant groups the space to operate against any other country,” Sharif said shortly after Trump’s address to the US Congress.
India took note of the latest example of the counterterrorism cooperation between Pakistan and the US. A source in New Delhi said that the Trump Administration in Washington D.C. should also keep prodding Islamabad to stop exporting terror to the neighbourhood of Pakistan. “That Pakistan’s claim of denying safe havens to terrorists is far from reality should be well known to the US”, said another source, aware of New Delhi’s engagement with Washington DC on counterterrorism issues.
After a meeting at the White House on February 13, Trump had joined Modi in calling on Pakistan to expeditiously bring to justice the perpetrators of the November 26-28, 2008, terrorist attacks in Mumbai and January 2016 attacks in Pathankot and to ensure that its territory is not used to carry out cross-border terrorist attacks.