A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, sentenced Mohammad Sharifullah to 20 years in prison Wednesday for his role in the August 2021 Abbey Gate bombing that killed 13 U.S. service members and roughly 170 Afghan civilians during the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Sharifullah, an Afghan national also known as “Jafar,” was convicted by a jury in April of participating in a years-long conspiracy to provide support and resources to ISIS-K, the Islamic State’s Khorasan Province affiliate. Twenty years was the maximum sentence available under his conviction.
According to details the Department of Justice disclosed after his conviction, ISIS-K leadership directed Sharifullah on Aug. 26, 2021, to check whether a road leading to Hamid Karzai International Airport was clear of Taliban checkpoints. Around 2:00 p.m. that day, Sharifullah drove the route and reported back to ISIS-K leadership that it was clear. At approximately 5:36 p.m., ISIS-K operative Abdul Rahman al-Logari — a man Sharifullah had known from time the two spent together in an Afghan prison — detonated a suicide bomb at Abbey Gate.
The bombing occurred during the final, chaotic days of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, as American troops worked to evacuate citizens and Afghan allies following the Taliban’s swift takeover of Kabul.
Sharifullah was captured in Pakistan in 2025 and extradited to the United States to face trial. Several Gold Star parents attended Wednesday’s sentencing in the Alexandria courtroom.
Mark Schmitz, whose 20-year-old son, Marine Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, was among the 13 service members killed, delivered a victim impact statement and asked Sharifullah to face him as he spoke.
“They may have taken his life, but they’ll never take his legacy,” Schmitz said. “A bomb killed my son. It did not kill what he stood for.”
U.S. District Judge Anthony Trenga described Sharifullah as a “dedicated terrorist” and pointed to his lack of remorse for what the judge called the “unfathomable” suffering his actions caused before imposing the maximum sentence.
The sentence closes one chapter of the legal reckoning over the Abbey Gate attack, though it does nothing to reverse the losses of the 13 American troops and the roughly 170 Afghan civilians killed that day.
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