WASHINGTON, United States: An Afghan man was sentenced to 20 years in prison on Wednesday for providing support to the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, the group behind the deadly 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport.

Mohammad Sharifullah, a member of Islamic State Khorasan (ISK), was convicted by a federal jury in Virginia in April of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

Prosecutors had sought to tie Sharifullah to the Kabul airport attack that killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 American troops but the jury failed to agree on the extent of his involvement.

The jury found Sharifullah guilty of conspiracy to provide support to ISK but deadlocked after two days of deliberations on his alleged role in the airport suicide bombing.

President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress last year, had described Sharifullah as the “top terrorist responsible” for the Kabul airport attack.

According to prosecutors, Sharifullah scouted out the route to the airport where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Taliban seized control of Kabul.

The United States withdrew its last troops from Afghanistan in August 2021, ending a chaotic evacuation of tens of thousands of Afghans who had rushed to the airport in the hopes of boarding a flight out of the country.

Sharifullah was extradited to the United States from Pakistan in March 2025 and put on trial in Alexandria on the outskirts of the US capital.

According to the US authorities, Sharifullah was involved in a number of ISK attacks between 2016 and his arrest by Pakistani authorities in 2025.

They included a June 2016 suicide bombing that targeted Nepali security guards protecting the Canadian Embassy in Kabul.

Sharifullah was accused of conducting surveillance and transporting the suicide bomber to the attack site.

He was also accused of giving weapons instructions to ISK gunmen who attacked the Crocus City Hall near Moscow in March 2024.