The Wrong Man

How the U.S. Got the Abbey Gate Attack All Wrong

The Islamic State Flag (Commons)

(GCV Note: Welcome free subscribers to Colonel Rahmani’s newsletter, Between War and Words. Colonel Rahmani is starting off with a bang: The Trump administration has the wrong guy for Abbey Gate.)

The night we captured Sharifullah, I believed we had removed a key player from the battlefield. As the Deputy Commander of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOCC) for Afghan Special Operations Forces, my team had spent months tracking him—an elusive Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) commander responsible for a series of deadly attacks throughout Afghanistan.

He had blood on his hands—too much to count. He had overseen the 2018 truck bombing in Kabul’s Green Zone, where more than 100 people died, their bodies torn apart by the force of the explosion. He had orchestrated the 2019 coordinated bombings at Kabul University, where 35 students and faculty members were murdered in classrooms meant for learning, not for dying. His network had carried out targeted assassinations of Afghan intelligence officers, planting magnetic bombs under cars, executing officers in broad daylight, ensuring terror was felt in every street of Kabul. Rocket attacks on Kabul Airport, a suicide bombing inside a crowded Shia Mosque in Herat—his fingerprints were all over Afghanistan’s darkest days.

So, when we finally took him into custody, I was certain that was the end for him. He would never see daylight again. But I was mistaken. Two years later, I would be the one approving his release.

By 2020, my battlefield had shifted. I was no longer leading forces in the field. I was appointed Head of the Presidential Information Coordination Center (PICC), overseeing intelligence operations at the highest level. That role involved being part of the team responsible for executing the US-Taliban Doha Agreement, which would enable the U.S. to withdraw from Afghanistan.

I sat in the room where the prisoner lists were finalized. When I saw his name—Sharifullah—on the release list, I understood precisely what it meant. At the request of U.S. officials, he was included in the first round of the prisoner exchange.

In exchange for Sharifullah, we asked the U.S. to urge the Taliban to release 12 Afghan commandos. However, the Taliban never intended to honor the deal. The commandos were never seen again. And Sharifullah? He walked free, his past erased, with his network ready to be reactivated.

The release was a mistake. However, what transpired next was even worse—a deliberate rewriting of history that falsely implicated him in one of the deadliest attacks of the war: the August 26, 2021, Abbey Gate bombing at Hamid Karzai International Airport (HKIA).

The problem? Sharifullah had nothing to do with it.

The truth about who carried out the Abbey Gate attack was never a mystery. It was not a random IS-K strike, nor was it the work of a lone suicide bomber. It was a coordinated operation involving IS-K, the Haqqani Network, and elements within the Taliban government.

A detailed investigative report, HKIA: Know Thy Enemy, documents the real actors behind the attack. The evidence is undeniable:

• Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s Interior Minister and longtime leader of the Haqqani Network, was the primary facilitator.

• Sanaullah Ghafari (Shahab al-Muhajir), the leader of IS-K, personally authorized the attack.

• Rajab Salahuddin, IS-K’s operational planner, was responsible for coordinating the bomber’s infiltration through Taliban-controlled security checkpoints.

• Badri 313 and Al-Fateh Force, elite units of the Haqqani Network, controlled the airport’s outer perimeter and allowed the suicide bomber to pass without interference.

These are not theories. They are documented facts. The Taliban’s claim that it had “nothing to do” with the attack collapses under the weight of evidence. The suicide bomber did not slip through security—he was waved through by Haqqani operatives.

The Abbey Gate attack was not just an IS-K operation—it was an act of strategic warfare designed to humiliate the United States in its final hours in Afghanistan.

And yet, Washington chose to blame a man who had been given to him by his enemy.

Sharifullah was a terrorist, but he was not the terrorist behind Abbey Gate. So why was he named as a suspect?

There are several answers, none of them reassuring.

First, the interconnection between IS-K and the Haqqani Network has always been deeper than many in Washington acknowledge. While IS-K is often framed as a rogue offshoot, separate from the Taliban’s control, its leadership has been infiltrated and manipulated by Haqqani operatives for years. If Sharifullah had truly been a standalone IS-K asset, why would the Haqqani Network have demanded his release in 2020? The reality is that Sharifullah was not operating independently—he was a valuable piece in a much larger game. Haqqani leadership handed him over to Pakistan’s ISI, which later sold him to the U.S. This was not an act of justice; it was a transaction. The ISI, which has long used both IS-K and Haqqani forces as strategic tools, saw an opportunity to exchange one of its assets while keeping its most valuable operatives intact. This deception allowed the ISI to further mislead U.S. policymakers into believing that Haqqani and IS-K were at odds when, in reality, Haqqani commanders have frequently worked with IS-K leadership to carry out targeted attacks whenever it suits their shared interests.

Secondly, Pakistan’s ISI has spent decades honing the art of deflection. Whenever the world gets too close to uncovering the ties between the Haqqani network, the Taliban, and the ISI, Pakistan presents a different target to divert attention. By shifting blame onto a former detainee, the ISI managed to downplay Haqqani involvement.

Third, the Taliban needed a scapegoat. The attack was too brazen and too coordinated—there was no way to deny that Taliban security forces had let the bomber through. By shifting responsibility to a released prisoner, they diverted attention away from the Haqqani Network, which remains one of Pakistan’s most valuable assets.

Ultimately, failures in U.S. intelligence were significant. In the tumultuous days after the attack, the U.S. sought an enemy to blame—one that aligned perfectly with the prevailing narrative of “IS-K as the sole terrorist threat." Instead of recognizing the coordination between the Haqqani and Taliban, Washington opted for a more convenient and simplified explanation.

Thus, the actual architects of the attack continue to hold power, while Sharifullah—who was undoubtedly a terrorist, but not the one responsible for Abbey Gate—acted as a convenient distraction.

Failing to correctly identify the actual perpetrators of the Abbey Gate bombing is not just a historical mistake; it carries important implications for counterterrorism strategy in Afghanistan and beyond.

By misplacing blame, Washington has:

• Allowed Pakistan to continue shielding the Haqqani Network under the guise of “fighting IS-K.”

• Misaligned future counterterrorism efforts, ensuring the actual actors responsible for jihadist operations remain untouched.

• Failed to hold the Taliban accountable for its role in facilitating IS-K’s worst attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

If policymakers fail to correct these mistakes, the next attack is only a matter of time.

The U.S. government must declassify intelligence that exposes the Haqqani Network’s role in the Abbey Gate attack. ISI must be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism, and all U.S. aid to Pakistan must be cut immediately.

Washington got it wrong. The record needs to be corrected before it’s too late.