A trial against an alleged ISIS-K co-conspirator in the Abbey Gate bombing in Afghanistan has revealed intelligence reporting and on-the-ground witness testimony suggesting that Haqqani Taliban forces at the Kabul airport may have been involved in the August 2021 attack.

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.

On Monday, 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 alleged intelligence reports which all pointed to the Haqqani Taliban and its leaders facilitating the Abbey Gate bombing in some form or fashion.

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, killed 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.

Sanaullah Ghafari, the head of ISIS-K, still has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head. The UN sanctions monitoring team said in 2021 that one nation said that Ghafari was “previously a mid-level commander in the Haqqani Network” and that he continued to maintain cooperation with the Haqqanis.

One UN member state also said that year that ISIS-K Ghafari’s ongoing relationship with the Haqqanis provided ISIS-K with “key expertise and access to [attack] networks.” 

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 Abbey Gate.

Last week, the recorded words of the alleged co-conspirator in the deadly Abbey Gate bombing were played for hours during his federal trial this week in northern Virginia, with the jury hearing the ISIS-K terrorist confess to conducting reconnaissance ahead of the attack at Hamid Karzai International Airport, denying foreknowledge of it occurring, and raising concerns about his detention by the Pakistanis.

U.S. intel reports point to Taliban involvement with Abbey Gate

Brief summaries of purported U.S. intelligence reports were read into the trial record for the jury on Monday, all of them suggesting that the Haqqani Taliban and its leader — Sirajuddin Haqqani — played some sort of role in ISIS-K’s deadly attack on Abbey Gate.

A “Mr. Wenstrup” of the federal public defender’s office read the summaries into the record. 

Judge Anthony Trenga, appointed to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia by President George W. Bush, is presiding over the trial in Alexandria, Va., and he told the jury that the snippets were “true and accurate summaries of source reporting held by the U.S. government.”

Wenstrup said that there were four U.S. intelligence documents — two from September 2021, May 2023, and March 2025 — which contained alleged information about Abbey Gate.

One of these reports alleged that the Haqqani Network or Taliban members were responsible for the Abbey Gate attack or were connected to it. One source allegedly said the Taliban’s goal in facilitating the Abbey Gate attack was to create a common enemy in ISIS-K for the U.S. and the Taliban. One source also said the mastermind of the Abbey Gate attack had a close relationship with Sirajuddin.

One intelligence report dated August 2023 contained intelligence claiming a Taliban official in Kabul had an active role in the Abbey Gate bombing and had close ties to Sirajuddin.

Another intelligence report dated August 27, 2021 — the day after the Abbey Gate bombing — contained info from August 23, 2021 alleging that the Haqqani Network was preparing suicide bombers to attack Western planes, and that the Haqqanis had at least two bombers outside HKIA.

FBI Special Agent Austin Price, a prosecution witness who had testified last week about Sharifullah’s confessions to the bureau, was recalled by the DOJ on Monday to emphasize that some of these intelligence reports had been labeled as “not finely evaluated intelligence.”

The agent said that meant some of the reports were “raw intelligence” that “hasn’t been vetted” and said it indicated the intelligence was not necessarily evaluated further.

Afghan-American interpreter testified Haqqani Taliban at Abbey Gate were hostile to U.S.

A key witness for the defense on Monday was Ali Raza Hassani, an Afghan-American who previously worked as a combat linguist and cultural adviser for the U.S. government starting in 2009 and who was advising top U.S. commanders during the evacuation. Hassani testified about the hostility that he and the U.S. military faced from some Haqqani Taliban leaders at the Kabul airport, including at Abbey Gate.

Hassani called the Haqqani Network forces “the most notorious and most violent faction of the Taliban.”

Hassani said he currently lives in New Jersey, but that he was born in Kabul, left Afghanistan when he was 17 years old, and came to the United States when he was 22 or 23 years old in 2001. He first deployed to Afghanistan to assist the U.S. military in 2009 as a government contractor.

The interpreter said he was in Afghanistan until August 30, 2021 and took one of the last flights out of Afghanistan with then-Major General Chris Donahue, the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, and U.S. military personnel.

He said he had previously worked alongside numerous key U.S. military commanders and generals — including Donahue, General Austin “Scottie” Miller, and Rear Admiral Pete Vasely — to provide linguistic support and cultural expertise. He began working for Vasely in summer 2021 after Miller, the commander of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan through July 2021, transitioned out of Afghanistan.

Hassani spoke a lot about a “point of contact” for the Taliban that the U.S. military had been given by Taliban leadership in Doha in mid-August 2021. It was likely a Taliban leader named Hamdullah Mukhlis, with whom the U.S. was supposed to coordinate with as the U.S. relied upon the Taliban for security during the evacuation.

The witness testified that this Taliban point of contact claimed to have command-and-control authority over all of the Taliban forces at HKIA, but that this claim was not true.

Hassani said that this Taliban point of contact did seem to have command over the South Gate at the Kabul airport, but that the Haqqanis had taken control of the areas near the Ministry of Interior gate and Abbey Gate at HKIA, and that the Taliban point of contact did not seem to have control over them

“At least two of the gate commanders” — both Haqqani Taliban leaders — “did not directly obey or report to the Taliban point of contact,” Hassani testified.

He said that the Haqqani commander at the Ministry of Interior gate and at Abbey Gate did not take orders from the Taliban point of contact, despite the Taliban point of contact’s claims to the contrary.

Hassani said that he constantly accompanied Vasely and Donahue for inspections of the Kabul airport’s various gates during the evacuation, and that he went to the gates multiple times per day. He also said that he accompanied Vasely and Donahue to meetings with the Taliban leaders positioned just outside the airport.

He said that the Haqqani Taliban commander at the Ministry of the Interior gate threatened to kill Americans. During an in-person meeting that he accompanied with Donahue where they met with the Taliban point of contact and with the Taliban leader at the Ministry of the Interior gate, the latter Taliban leader was “absolutely hostile” to the United States.

The interpreter said that, during the meeting, a Taliban soldier pointed a gun at him as Hassani talked to Donahue. He said that it was clear that the Haqqani commander was the one in charge and that his Taliban point of contact was not, with the Taliban point of contact pretending to be on the phone as the Ministry of the Interior gate commander threatened the Americans.

Hassani repeatedly said Abbey Gate was “the most chaotic and the most crowded gate of all.”

The witness said  he was attempting to rescue an Afghan special forces brigade commander and to bring him into Kabul airport, and that the Taliban point of contact said that would be fine. But the Abbey Gate commander — a Haqqani Taliban leader — was “absolutely uncooperative and hostile toward me” and “did not facilitate the passage of the brigade commander," he said.

He testified that if the Haqqani commander at Abbey Gate had wanted to help, he could have and he would have, “but he was not willing to help me or help us.” Hassani also said that if the Haqqani commander “wanted to” help someone get close to Abbey Gate then “he could have.”

DOJ tried to undercut idea that Taliban helped with Abbey Gate attack

DOJ prosecutor Avi Panth cross-examined Hassani, getting the witness to agree that the U.S. passed intelligence on ISIS-K to the Taliban. The prosecutor also asked Hassani if the Taliban had said on at least one occasion that they would take care of the ISIS-K threat which the U.S. alerted them to, but the witness replied, “They always said that.”

The prosecutor emphasized that it would not make sense for the U.S. to pass intelligence to the Taliban if the Taliban might be collaborating with ISIS-K.

Panth asked Hassani if he agreed that “ball bearings don’t discriminate between” Americans, Afghans, and Taliban, but the defense team objected to the question and the judge sustained the objection.

“Are you aware that 28 Taliban members died in the blast?” the prosecutor asked the Afghan-American interpreter.

“I’m not aware of that,” Hassani replied.

The Islamic State’s Al-Naba weekly newsletter in September 2021 focused on the Abbey Gate bombing. ISIS-K falsely claimed that the only people who were killed were U.S. troops and Taliban. There is no evidence that the bombing killed even a single member of the Taliban.

While outlets such as Al Jazeera reported shortly after the Abbey Gate attack that 28 Taliban members had been killed in the blast, the Taliban’s official spokesperson also quickly denied this at the time.

“Our forces were far from the scene of the blast and our forces suffered no casualties,” Taliban mouthpiece Zabihulah Mujahid said in an interview with RadioFreeEurope RadioLiberty on August 27, 2021.

Possibility of Abbey Gate collusion has been raised for years

The day of the bombing, Biden administration officials quickly denied that there had been collusion between the Taliban and ISIS-K and defended the U.S. decision to coordinate with the Talibs on airport security. President Joe Biden immediately claimed he had seen “no evidence” of “collusion between the Taliban and ISIS in carrying out what happened today.”

The Pentagon under Biden argued that the attack was not preventable – going so far as to say it still would have occurred even if the bomber had remained behind bars rather than being freed by the Taliban – despite a host of evidence indicating that the attack did not have to happen the way it did.

The UN sanctions monitoring team said in 2020 that some countries noted that most ISIS-K attacks include “involvement, facilitation, or the provision of technical assistance” by the Haqqani Network, and that ISIS-K “lacked the capability to launch complex attacks in Kabul on its own” without Haqqani help. The UN team also said it had “viewed communication intercepts in the wake of attacks that were claimed by ISIS-K that were traceable to known members of the Haqqani Network.”

The UN team said that “some countries “have reported tactical or commander-level collaboration between ISIL-K and the Haqqani Network.” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that “we strongly reject this propaganda” and that “we have nothing in common (and don’t operate cells) with Daesh [ISIS-K].”

General Miller told Congress in 2024 that “I could never verify a Haqqani-ISIS nexus.” West Point’s Counterterrorism Center published an article in 2022 stating that Ghafari had joined “Taliban factions affiliated with the Haqqani network” and “had close links to the Haqqani network’s senior commanders.”

Major General Buck Elton and Captain Joshua Fruth assessed in late 2021 that “the Taliban may have leveraged ISIS–K as a proxy strawman layer of separation to oversee and/or facilitate the attack on U.S. service members and Afghan civilians” at the airport.

West Point’s Counterterrorism Center published an article in 2022 stating that Ghafari had joined “Taliban factions affiliated with the Haqqani network” and “had close links to the Haqqani network’s senior commanders, Taj Mir Jawad and Qari Baryal, who ran terrorist networks in the capital.”

Taj Mir Jawad had been picked to be the deputy chief of intelligence for the Taliban-led government in September 2021, and Qari Baryal was selected to be the governor of Kabul province by the Taliban in November 2021.

Thus, not only was ISIS-K leader Ghafari closely tied to the Haqqani Network as a general matter, but he also had a close personal history to two Taliban officials who went on to be key leaders in the Taliban’s ruling regime.

A report last year by Sarah Adams, a writer and former CIA analyst, concluded that the bombing plot “was a coordinated effort between the Haqqani Network and the Islamic State-Khorasan Province, with their leaders, Sirajuddin Haqqani and Sanaullah Ghafari, acting as joint masterminds.”

Military has had testimony for years suggesting Abbey Gate was “insider job”

A Tajik Afghan-American interpreter who had worked for multiple U.S. generals in Afghanistan and who was working for Vasely as an interlocutor with the Taliban during the NEO repeatedly raised the possibility with military investigators that the Abbey Gate attack happened through collusion between Haqqani elements of the Taliban and ISIS-K.

Although this interpreter’s identity in his 2021 interview was redacted, it appears to have been Hassani.

The U.S. interpreter said to military investigators that Vasely “gave me a contact to speak with the Taliban and I was the only one who spoke directly to them from our level.” The interpreter said that the Taliban’s “lower-ranking commanders were very antagonistic.” He also said that the “Haqqani [Taliban] definitely brought their elements in and were much more difficult to control and coordinate with.” 

The U.S. interpreter further said that Badri 313 “was a Haqqani controlled brigade. They were trained the way our special operations are trained. They wouldn't talk to you or give you any information. Most of 313 was visible at the South Gate, the NSU Gate Area, and the North Gate. They were visibly distinguishable from the Taliban.”

The interpreter argued that Taliban leaders in Doha could try to make all Taliban leaders on the ground obey during the NEO, “but it didn't really happen.” He said the Taliban’s main interlocutor with the U.S. military “explained to all of the units that this is an agreement from Doha and Doha gave him the authority to make coordinations. It was a struggle to get them to obey.”

The U.S. interpreter also detailed that many of the Taliban’s commanders surrounding HKIA were hostile to the U.S. and were members of the Haqqani Network: “The MOI [Ministry of the Interior] in southwest was difficult and was led by [Redacted] who was Haqqani. The Taliban at the Barron Hotel were terrible and the tactical commander at South Gate was very antagonistic. His name was [Redacted]. He was Haqqani and well educated, but very hostile toward U.S. He said to Rear Admiral Vasely’s face that he and all other U.S. leaders were liars. I immediately advised Rear Admiral Vasely to disengage him.”

The U.S. interpreter continued: “Ultimately, I think the Taliban downplaying the threats, combined with overestimating their own capability, may have led to the attack at Abbey Gate. On multiple occasions, I was authorized to pass information to the Taliban about ISIS threat at any gate. There would be no action associated with received intelligence. The Taliban probably grew complacent and thought that since there had been no action from previous intelligence, there would be no need to act on future intelligence. They said things along the lines of ‘we got it, we will take care of it’ in regards to the Abbey Gate threat.”

“It must have been very difficult,” the Afghan-American interpreter said when discussing how Logari made it all the way up to the Marines. “It’s possible the attack was an insider job and the Taliban brought him closer. The Taliban at that gate were more hostile.”

One Marine on the ground at HKIA also told military investigators that “there was some reporting of lower-level Taliban moving over to ISIS-K when the Taliban started working with the Americans. It presented an ideological issue for them.”

Taliban commander Abdul Hadi Hamdan later said in a documentary: “When I came to Kabul I was put in charge of the airport. We surrounded it with a thousand suicide bombers.”

Taliban would often refuse to raid ISIS-K during Afghan evac

The U.S. military repeatedly asked the Taliban to search or raid suspected ISIS-K locations near the Kabul airport; sometimes the Taliban would agree to help, but other times the Taliban refused to do so. The recalcitrance by the Taliban demonstrated their untrustworthiness and likely increased the chances of an ISIS-K attack at HKIA.

The Taliban repeatedly refused to help the U.S. against the ISIS-K threat during the evacuation.

One U.S. military officer at Kabul airport told CENTCOM investigators that “intelligence officers at HKIA knew that ISIS-K was staging at a hotel 2-3 kilometers west of HKIA, and D2 [Donahue] asked the TB [Taliban] to conduct an assault on the hotel, but they never did.” 

Now-former CENTCOM Commander General Frank McKenzie told the media in September 2023 that “there were a variety of targets that we passed to the Taliban to take a look at — more than ten. Some they did. Some they didn’t action.” Biden Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher confirmed that month “we did ask the Taliban to raid or search several areas” and that the Taliban “searched some and did not search others.”

McKenzie provided more details to the House Foreign Affairs Committee about the U.S. reliance on the Taliban to provide security against ISIS-K in Kabul and outside of Kabul airport, though he also denied that the U.S. was relying on the Taliban.

“We passed the Taliban information on targets that were in close proximity to HKIA, places that we thought ISIS-K was gathering, ISIS-K might be preparing to strike, and there were about eighteen of those targets that we passed,” the general said, adding that the Taliban “took action on some of them” but they “may not have taken action” on others.

McKenzie wrote in his memoir that Vasely reached out to “Taliban military commission liaison officer Mullawi Hammidullah, who was in charge of Taliban forces around the airfield.” He said that “this channel of communication allowed us to pass them warnings about ISIS-K activities.” The general said that the U.S. military “shared eighteen imminent threat warnings” with the Taliban, but admitted that “our success in this effort was mixed.” McKenzie said that the Taliban “sometimes … responded and looked at areas we felt held ISIS-K members” but that “sometimes they did not.” The general contended that “it is my judgment that this practice did more good than bad.”

Jury will soon decide Sharifullah’s fate

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.

Assistant U.S. Attorney John Gibbs said during his opening statement last week that ISIS-K is a designated foreign terrorist organization and that it is a “crime to provide material support to an FTO like ISIS-K.” 

Gibbs said Sharifullah had previously told a reporter that he wanted to strike at "the Crusaders" and got his chance with Abbey Gate.

Defense lawyer Geremy Kamens asserted in his own opening statement that “it is very likely” that the Haqqani Taliban helped with the Abbey Gate attack, and contended that “it is extremely likely that this was an inside job” that was “done with the help of the Haqqani Network.”

The Justice Department had rested its case Thursday, which was followed by the defense lawyers pushing the judge to acquit their client before the jury could consider a verdict. The defense team rested its own case on Monday afternoon.

The prosecution and defense in the Sharifullah trial are slated to deliver their closing arguments on Tuesday morning, and then the jury is expected to begin its deliberations.