Washington DC - A US federal jury has convicted an Afghan man of providing support to the Islamic State group in Afghanistan, but failed to agree on the extent of his involvement in the deadly 2021 suicide bombing at Kabul airport.

Mohammad Sharifullah, a member of the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) branch in Afghanistan and Pakistan, was convicted in Virginia on Wednesday of conspiracy to provide material support to a terrorist organization.

President Donald Trump, in an address to Congress last year, had described Sharifullah as the "top terrorist responsible" for the Kabul airport attack that killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 American troops.

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

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The jury failed to reach a unanimous verdict that "the death of either a US Service member or an Afghan civilian, at the Hamid Karzai International Airport on August 26, 2021, resulted from that conspiracy."

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

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

He faces up to 20 years in prison. A date for his sentencing has not yet been set.

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.