by Jerry Dunleavy
Trump announced that an ISIS-K terrorist linked to the Abbey Gate terrorist attack has been captured and is being flown to the United States.
President Donald Trump disclosed Tuesday night that the U.S. has extradited one of the ISIS-K terrorists responsible for the August 2021 Abbey Gate terrorist attack that killed 13 American troops during the bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Trump made the announcement during his address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, delivering on part of a promise to deliver accountability for Gold Star families who lost loved ones in the tragedy.
Trump said that "tonight I am pleased to announce that we have just apprehended the top terrorist responsible for that atrocity, and he is right now on his way here to face the swift sword of American justice." Trump thanked the government of Pakistan for helping arrest the "monster" who helped carry out the attack.
"I spoke to many of the parents and loved ones, and they're all in our hearts tonight. I spoke to them on the phone. We had a big call. Every one of them called, and everybody was on the line, and they did nothing but cry with happiness," Trump said of his call with the Gold Star families alerting them of the news. "They were very happy, as happy as you can be under those circumstances. Their child, brother, sister, son, daughter was killed for no reason whatsoever."
FBI Director Kash Patel tweeted shortly after Trump's announcement that "tonight the FBI, DOJ, and CIA have extradited one of the terrorists responsible for the murder of the 13 American soldiers at Abbey Gate during the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal. One step closer to justice for these American heroes and their families."
The captured bombing co-conspirator allegedly tied to the Abbey Gate attack, whom one official identified as Mohammed Sharifullah, is expected to land at Washington Dulles International Airport in the early morning hours of Wednesday, a source familiar with the operation told Just the News.
The Taliban conducted a rapid takeover of the country in the ensuing months and swept into the Afghan capital of Kabul on August 15, 2021. The chaotic non-combatant evacuation operation by the U.S. was conducted through Hamid Karzai International Airport while the U.S. military relied upon a hostile Taliban to provide security outside the airport.
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, killing 13 U.S. service members and an estimated 170 Afghan civilians while wounding dozens of other U.S. troops and scores of Afghans in the crowd, on August 26, 2021. When the evacuation came to a halt a few days later, hundreds of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghan allies were left behind.
During his first term, President Trump considered removing all U.S. troops from Afghanistan, but he ultimately decided to keep 2,500 U.S. forces in the country when he left office in January 2021. Then-President Joe Biden announced the unconditional withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan in an April 2021 speech, setting the withdrawal deadline for the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
The Taliban has re-instituted its brutal rule of Afghanistan, and is shielding al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups in the country. The regional and transnational threat posed by ISIS-K has grown since the Taliban takeover.
“We’re doing a complete review of every single aspect of what happened in the botched withdrawal in Afghanistan,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House last week. “We’re taking a very different view obviously than the previous [Biden] administration — and there will be full accountability.”
The 13 U.S. troops killed in the Abbey Gate blast include Marine Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola, Lance Cpl. Kareem Nikoui, Sgt. Johanny Rosario Pichardo, Sgt. Nicole Gee, Cpl. Hunter Lopez, Cpl. Daegan Page, Cpl. Humberto Sanchez, Lance Cpl. David Espinoza, Lance Cpl. Jared Schmitz, and Lance Cpl. Rylee McCollum. Navy Corpsman Maxton Soviak was also among those killed, as was Army Staff Sgt. Ryan Christian Knauss.
"We are so happy that after almost four years, someone is going to be held responsible for the murder of our sons and daughters!" Darin Hoover, the father of Staff Sgt. Hoover, told Just the News. "On the call with President Trump this morning, he and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz announced it to us. We couldn't be more proud of the hard work and dedication of this administration. We felt denied and swept aside by the previous administration, but this administration has made promises and kept them!"
Jerry Dunleavy
Source: https://justthenews.com/government/security/trump-announces-extradition-abbey-gate-bombing-co-conspirator
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