RASC News Agency: A well-placed source has disclosed that Sharifullah, the suspect apprehended by the United States in connection with the Kabul International Airport bombing, is not a senior ISIS commander, as previously suggested, but rather a key figure within the Taliban and the Haqqani Network. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source revealed that Sharifullah was originally arrested in 2019 by Afghanistan’s former National Directorate of Security (NDS) and later transferred to Bagram Prison. During interrogations, he reportedly admitted to orchestrating 29 complex terrorist attacks. According to the source, he was released immediately after the collapse of the Afghanistani Republic in 2021.
Furthermore, the source indicated that many of the attacks Sharifullah confessed to had been publicly claimed by Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid at the time. Before his initial arrest by the former Afghanistani intelligence agency, Sharifullah was allegedly affiliated with Tajmir Jawad, a high-ranking Haqqani Network operative who now serves as the Deputy Chief of Taliban Intelligence Operations. Despite being designated by U.S. intelligence agencies as a senior ISIS commander and the mastermind behind the Kabul airport attack, Sharifullah was captured near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in a coordinated operation between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). He was subsequently extradited to the United States.
Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had previously stated that Sharifullah is an Afghanistani national. However, growing analysis suggests that ISIS and the Taliban function as two sides of the same entity, strategically crafted along ethnic, regional, and intelligence lines to serve broader geopolitical agendas. Many experts argue that, in ideological terms, there is little to no distinction between the two groups.
