Abbey Gate case in the hands of jurors as DOJ and defense trade blows over deadly ISIS-K attack

The fate of an ISIS-K terrorist and alleged Abbey Gate bombing co-conspirator is in the hands of 12 jurors after closing arguments Tuesday by dueling attorneys – the Justice Department's arguing the defendant sought to “kill the Crusaders” while the defense team sought to point the finger at the Taliban instead.

The defendant, Mohammad Sharifullah, also known as “Jafar," has been charged with a single count of providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization – ISIS-K – which resulted in death. He has pleaded not guilty to the charge, and the jury will soon deliver its verdict. The jurors heard the final arguments by prosecutors and defense attorneys Tuesday, but were not able to reach a verdict before being sent home for the day.

The FBI has said that Sharifullah confessed to being involved in “route reconnaissance” in the lead-up to the Aug. 26, 2021, Abbey Gate attack, in which a suicide bomber detonated an explosive vest, killing 11 Marines, one Army soldier, one Navy corpsman, and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians. The blast also wounded dozens of other U.S. troops and scores of Afghans in the crowd.

The FBI has said Sharifullah was contacted by another ISIS-K member upon being freed from prison in August 2021 and that the fellow terrorist connected him with the plot to attack U.S. forces at the airport. The bureau said ISIS-K members provided Sharifullah with a motorcycle, funds for a cell phone, and instructions on using social media to communicate with them in the lead-up to the attack.

An ISIS-K suicide bomber named Abdul Rahman al-Logari – who had been freed by the Taliban from a prison at Bagram Air Base in mid-August 2021, mere weeks after the U.S. abandoned the base, has been identified as having carried out the suicide attack at the Abbey Gate of the Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The chaotic and deadly non-combatant evacuation operation at the airport by U.S. in mid-August 2021 was conducted by the  U.S. military, which relied upon a hostile Taliban – including the Haqqani Network – to provide security outside the airport.

Just the News reported last week that the recorded words of Sharifullah were played for hours during his federal trial, in northern Virginia, with the jury hearing the ISIS-K terrorist confessing to conducting reconnaissance ahead of the airport attack, denying foreknowledge of it occurring and raising concerns about his detention by the Pakistanis.

Just the News also reported this week that the defense team interviewed an Afghan-American interpreter who discussed the hostility of the Haqqani Taliban forces that he had personally witnessed at Abbey Gate. And the defense team also read into the record the summaries of multiple U.S. intelligence report summaries, which all pointed to the Haqqani Taliban and its leaders facilitating the bombing in some form.

Aside from his alleged Abbey Gate role, the DOJ also provided evidence in court that Sharifullah further confessed to a role in facilitating a June 2016 suicide bombing attack that killed more than 10 guards tasked with protecting the Canadian embassy. The FBI has said Sharifullah also claimed to have trained ISIS-K gunmen for a deadly attack on a concert hall in Moscow in 2024.

The closing arguments by the Justice Department and the defense team largely echoed the themes of their opening statements last week, with the prosecutors pointing to Sharifullah’s ISIS-K membership and extensive confessions to the FBI. 

The defense team sought to deny its client’s involvement in the Abbey Gate attack, alleged that his confessions were coerced thanks to the Pakistanis, and shifted blame for the attack to the Taliban.

DOJ says “this case is not complicated” as it points to ISIS-K terrorists confessions

DOJ prosecutor Ryan White delivered the closing argument for the agency, saying that Sharifullah was a “long-standing, proud member of ISIS-K. ... How do you know that? He told you.”

White repeatedly referenced Sharifullah’s 2020 prison interview he gave to Al Jazeera about his role in ISIS-K and his 2025 interviews with the FBI in which he confessed to a number of ISIS-K attacks.

“Catch and kill the Crusaders, that is all,” was a prison interview quote from Sharifullah to which White repeatedly returned.

White discussed Sharifullah’s statements about his recruitment into ISIS-K by a "Dr. Naqibullah" and his swearing of allegiance to ISIS-K in 2016, the defendant’s involvement in a June 2016 suicide attack against Nepalese security guards for the Canadian embassy in Kabul, his purported assistance to the ISIS-K terrorists who carried out the deadly Moscow concern hall attack in 2024, and his alleged role in the Abbey Gate attack.

The prosecutor pointed out that Sharifullah claimed to have known and met with Sanaullah Ghafari, the head of ISIS-K, who still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head.

White noted that Sharifullah had been jailed at Pul-e-Charkhi prison from 2019 until the Taliban threw open the gates in mid-August 2021.

“What did he do with his newfound freedom? He went right back to ISIS,” the DOJ lawyer said.

The prosecutor also said the trial had produced evidence showing Sharifullah was linked to an Uzbek rocket attack in 2022, an attack on the Taliban police chief in Badakshan in 2022, other attacks on the Taliban in 2023, and the Crocus City Hall attack in Russia in 2024 before he was then arrested in Quetta, Pakistan in 2025.

He contended that there was “zero evidence in the record in this case that the defendant was actually mistreated in Pakistani custody.”

The prosecutor stressed that the U.S. does not control Pakistan, but that “the FBI did everything in exactly the right way” and that “the FBI did it all by the book.”

White pointed to the note Sharifullah wrote to the FBI while in Pakistani custody that stated that the Pakistanis wanted him to admit that he had planned the Abbey Gate attack with the leaders of ISIS-K.

“There was one admission he never made,” which is that he "planned the Abbey Gate attack,” the prosecutor said. White also stressed that Sharifullah never expressed remorse or shame about his involvement with ISIS-K.

The DOJ prosecutor also pointed to the Sharifullah business card found in an ISIS-K safe house during a raid targeting an attack cell leader in Kabul in 2019. White noted that Shairfullah admitted that Dr. Naqibullah made him the card as a cover.

White said that Sharifullah had provided significant non-public details about ISIS-K attacks.

“The defendant is not making it up – this really is his ISIS-K story,” White said, adding that “he scouted targets, he surveilled routes, he put suicide bombers on the back of his motorcycle.”

White discussed Sharifullah’s alleged connection to the Abbey Gate attack, saying he did surveillance from the airport road to the airport circle outside of the airport, at the behest of ISIS-K leaders, looking out for Taliban checkpoints. White stressed that Sharifullah also admitted that he knew Logari.

The prosecutor said that Sharifullah “surveilling this road made perfect sense” for conducting an attack on Abbey Gate less than a mile away. White noted that Sharifullah had said he had gotten several missed calls from ISIS-K superiors while he conducted the recon, indicating that the surveillance he was doing was important to the terrorist plot.

“The defendant played a crucial role in the Abbey Gate attack,” White said.

White read aloud the names of the 13 U.S. service members killed at Abbey Gate as their photographs were displayed on the screen for the jury.

“Ladies and gentleman, this case is not complicated. The defendant told you everything you need to know,” the DOJ prosecutor said near the conclusion of his remarks. White added that “the defendant did his job for ISIS-K, and now it’s your job as jurors” to find him guilty.

Defense team claims “all roads lead to the Haqqanis”

Lauren Rosen, one of the federal public defenders for Sharifullah, then delivered the closing argument for the defense team.

“The prosecution has given you nothing other than ISIS-K’s claim of responsibility” for the Abbey Gate attack, she said.

Rosen alleged that the DOJ had presented no surveillance footage, no photos, and no video of the attack or how it happened, that there was no DNA evidence of the attacker, and that there was no specific testimony on how the attack actually happened.

“He had nothing to do with the Abbey Gate attack,” Rosen said of her client.

The defense lawyer told the jurors that they could conclude that Sharifullah’s membership in ISIS-K was “reprehensible” but that that does not mean that the defendant was responsible for the Abbey Gate attack.

She said that the Ministry of Interior gate and Abbey Gate at the Kabul airport “were manned by hostile, uncooperative Haqqanis” and that “Abbey Gate was manned by a hostile Haqqani, and that is where the attack happened.”

The defense attorney also spoke briefly about the June 2016 suicide bombing against the Canadian embassy guards, pointing out that “both ISIS-K and the Taliban claimed credit for that attack.

“The prosecution has brought you no evidence of who actually orchestrated the Abbey Gate attack,” Rosen said.

Rosen claimed that “all roads lead to the Haqqanis” as she sought to pin the Abbey Gate attack solely on the Haqqani Network members of the Taliban.

She suggested the attack was an “inside job” as she asserted that only the Haqqani Taliban had the motive, means and capability to conduct the bombing.

The defense lawyer asserted that “the Taliban at the checkpoint would have noticed a 15-20 pound bomb” being carried by the attacker.

She also pointed to multiple U.S. intelligence reports that contained allegations that the Haqqani Network and/or the Taliban were responsible for the Abbey Gate attack, and/or that the attackers had a close relationship with Sirajuddin Haqqani. 

Rosen lingered on an intelligence report that recounted that an Afghan intelligence officer had a sub-source who alleged the day before the bombing that the Haqqanis wanted to attack Abbey Gate.

The defense lawyer essentially said repeatedly that while Sharifullah may have had “membership in ISIS-K” that did not mean there was any evidence he was specifically involved in the Abbey Gate attack, aside from his own confessions.

The Taliban was actually “swarming” the traffic circle that Sharifullah claimed to the FBI had been clear when he allegedly surveilled it, Rosen said, arguing that the Taliban had control of that traffic circle and so it was simply not true that it had been free of Taliban forces as her client had recounted to the FBI. 

“Mr. Sharifullah’s confession to scouting a route was false,” the defense attorney argued, adding that “if Mr. Sharifullah was there that day, he would’ve seen that the Taliban was in complete control of the traffic circle.”

She also argued that there was no evidence showing that Logari had taken the route that Sharifullah had allegedly scouted.

Rosen alleged that her client had been mistreated by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. She also pointed out that the Pakistanis had detained Sharifullah’s family, too.

“What could be more coercive than the detention of your pregnant wife and children?” the defense attorney asked. Rosen said that it was “against this backdrop” that the FBI interviewed Sharifullah.

She noted that her client had told the FBI that the Pakistanis had tried to force him to confess to his involvement in the Abbey Gate attack, and she also noted that, on at least three occasions, the FBI had asked the Pakistanis to provide witness testimony about Sharifullah’s treatment while in their custody, but that the Pakistanis had not provided that.

Rosen also pointed to Sharifullah’s “initial pleas for help that went untranslated” to the FBI by the interpreter who was present during the FBI interviews with Sharifullah in Pakistan.

“Mr. Sharifullah gave the FBI a story he thought they wanted,” Rosen said, claiming that her client’s story “has holes” in it because he wasn’t involved in the Abbey Gate bombing.

“The evidence at trial at best proved that Mr. Sharifullah was a member of ISIS-K,” the defense lawyer said, arguing that “the evidence in this case does not come close to showing that Mr. Sharifullah had anything to do with this attack.”

Rosen ended by saying that, when the jurors considered whether Sharifullah had conspired to provide material support to ISIS-K, and if Sharifullah’s material support to the terrorist group had led to death at Abbey Gate, “the answer to the second question is without a doubt no.”

The Abbey Gate 13: “These were the Crusaders he was trying to kill”

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gibbs then delivered a rebuttal for the DOJ, the final argument that the jurors would hear before they began their deliberations.

He appealed repeatedly to the “common sense” of the jury, also repeatedly arguing that Sharifullah’s confession about doing recon for the Abbey Gate attack had a “ring of truth to it.”

Gibbs suggested that Logari likely could have made it to the traffic circle outside the Kabul airport on the back of a motorcycle, and then Logari could have easily made his way to the airport from there without being stopped by the Taliban.

The prosecutor said there was no evidence that the Pakistanis had actually beaten up Sharifullah or mistreated him at all.

Gibbs also stressed that FBI testimony had included no credible evidence that anyone other than ISIS-K – such as the Taliban – had been involved in the attack.

He said that the intelligence report summaries pointing to Haqqani Taliban involvement were “raw intelligence reports that had not been fully evaluated.”

The prosecutor also argued to the jury that even if you assume that someone from the Taliban let Logari through a checkpoint, something he insisted was not known, then that would not somehow let Sharifullah and ISIS-K off the hook for their roles in the attack.

Gibbs said that Sharifullah had done his surveillance at about 1:30 or 2 p.m. the day of the attack, and that the bombing itself had occurred at about 5:30 p.m. that day, saying that actually made sense logically.

The prosecutor argued that it likely took Logari some time to make his way through the crowd, and so it taking a few hours for the bombing to occur was “not much of a stretch at all” and that “the timing is actually likely.”

The DOJ attorney again pointed to Sharifullah’s stated goal to “kill the Crusaders” and argued that “on August 26, his window to make good on that threat was closing rapidly.”

Gibbs praised the heroism of the Marines and other U.S. troops at the Kabul airport, including praising the service members who testified about the ordeal in court last week.

The prosecutor pointed to the U.S. Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington located not too far away from the Alexandria courtroom, noting its inscription with a quote by Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, who said, “Among the men who fought on Iwo Jima, uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

Gibbs said that “those same words apply to those we lost on August 26.” The prosecutor said one bit of “solace” from the horrific attack at Abbey Gate was that America can still produce people of bravery and heroism like that.

“These were the Crusaders he was trying to kill,” the prosecutor said of Sharifullah and his alleged targeting of the Marines at Abbey Gate.

Jury indicates disagreement over Sharifullah’s actions leading to death at Abbey Gate

Judge Anthony Trenga, the federal judge presiding over the case, issued lengthy instructions to the jury on Tuesday following the closing statements by the DOJ and the defense.

The judge did not allow copies of the intelligence summaries pointing to possible Haqqani Taliban culpability to go back to be reviewed by the jury in the way that exhibits are, with the judge saying the summaries were more akin to witness testimony.

The jury instructions included the admonition that involuntary statements by the defendant must be disregarded, and that the jury may not convict a defendant solely based on his own uncorroborated statements.

Trenga told the jurors that the DOJ must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that “but for the commission of the offense, the victim would not have died.” 

He said that the jury must unanimously agree beyond a reasonable doubt that, but for Sharifullah’s actions, at least one of the 13 U.S. service members at Abbey Gate would not have died.

The verdict form provided to the jury included two key elements. The first was the jury’s decision on whether Sharifullah was part of a conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS-K. The second was the jury’s decision on whether this conspiracy involving Sharifullah resulted in the death of at least one of the 13.

Late on Tuesday afternoon during the jury’s deliberations, the jurors sent a note to the judge asking, “What would happen if we cannot come to a unanimous verdict on count two?” There are not two criminal counts in the case, but rather just one, although the count has two elements that must be fulfilled for the jurors to find Sharifullah guilty.

Trenga asked the Justice Department for its thoughts on this question, and Gibbs remarked that if the jurors are not unanimous on the second element of the crime then it would have to be said that the crime had not been proven. He also noted that the jurors must have meant the “second finding” rather than the “second count.”

The DOJ prosecutor suggested that the jury was not revealing that they were unable to reach a verdict, but were just asking a clarifying question. He said the instruction from the judge should be that the jury needs to reach both findings unanimously.

Defense lawyer Geremy Kamens also told the judge that it was his stance that if the jury was not unanimous, then the crime was not proven.

Trenga brought the jury back in and told them that what would happen if they couldn’t reach a unanimous verdict would be up to him, and so they should not worry about that. He encouraged them to continue deliberating until 5:30 p.m. Tuesday. He did not clarify to them that there are two findings needed, rather than two criminal counts.

The jury was not able to reach a verdict Tuesday evening, and will return Wednesday morning to decide whether Sharifullah’s actions on behalf of ISIS-K led to the deaths of American troops at Abbey Gate.