ISLAMABAD: Pakistan highlighted its counterterrorism cooperation with Washington after the arrest of Mohammad Sharifullah, whom it blames for a 2021 attack on US troops at Kabul airport, in a military operation along the border with Afghanistan.
“We will continue to partner closely with the United States in securing regional peace and stability,” Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said on Wednesday, hours after US President Donald Trump thanked the country for the arrest, adding Sharifullah was on his way to the United States.
The United States has charged Sharifullah with helping to plan the attack and a hearing was scheduled for him in a federal court in Virginia on Wednesday, the US Department of Justice said.
The 2021 bombing at Kabul airport killed at least 170 Afghans and 13 US troops as they sought to help Americans and Afghans flee in the chaotic aftermath of the Taliban takeover.
The attack was claimed by Daesh-K, the Afghan branch of the Daesh group.
The US Justice Department has charged Sharifullah with “providing and conspiring to provide material support and resources” to the group.
“He confessed. This was the planner of that bombing,” White House national security adviser Mike Waltz said in an interview with Fox News.
FBI Director Kash Patel said Sharifullah was in US custody, in a post on X alongside a picture of agents standing in front of the plane that he was due to arrive on.
Pakistan had launched an operation along its Afghan border to capture Sharifullah, whom Sharif described as an Afghan national and top commander for militant group Daesh Khorasan.
“We thank US President Donald Trump for acknowledging and appreciating Pakistan’s role and support in counterterrorism efforts,” Sharif added in another statement.
Afghanistan’s Taliban government did not respond to a request for comment.
Pakistan’s deputy prime minister and foreign minister, Ishaq Dar, had spoken with US national security adviser Mike Walsh on Tuesday, according to a Pakistani foreign office statement.
Dar “reiterated that Pakistan looked forward to building on its longstanding and broad-based relationship with the United States under President Trump and his Administration,” it said.

SHIFTING TIES
Perennially shifting ties between Islamabad and Washington had been soured by concerns about Pakistan’s alleged support of Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.
Although Pakistan denies such support, its links with Washington have frayed, while arch-rival India has gained greater influence.
“This is a significant development in that US-Pakistan ties have been in an unsettled state in the nearly four years since the US exit from Afghanistan,” said Michael Kugelman, Director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington D.C.
A Pakistani security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Sharifullah’s arrest was part of wide-ranging joint counterterrorism efforts.
“Excellent cooperation has been established between Pakistan and President Trump’s new government,” the official added.
In a statement, the US Justice Department said it had caught Sharifullah with the help of the CIA and FBI agencies, without naming Pakistan.
Islamabad is making use of concerns about regional security and counterterrorism “to engage with Trump, who otherwise has no interest in Pakistan,” said defense analyst Ayesha Siddiqa.
“For now (the arrest) is just to signal to the United States that Pakistan is there and can be relied upon as a partner,” she added.

WASHINGTON: A divided US Supreme Court on Wednesday declined to let President Donald Trump’s administration withhold payment to foreign aid organizations for work they already performed for the government as the Republican president moves to pull the plug on American humanitarian projects around the world.
Handing a setback to Trump, the court in a 5-4 decision upheld Washington-based US District Judge Amir Ali’s order that had called on the administration to promptly release funding to contractors and recipients of grants from the US Agency for International Development and the State Department for their past work.
Conservative Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the decision.
The order by Ali, who is presiding over an ongoing legal challenge to Trump’s policy, had originally given the administration until February 26 to disburse the funding, which it has said totaled nearly $2 billion that could take weeks to pay in full.
Chief Justice John Roberts paused that order hours before the midnight deadline to give the Supreme Court additional time to consider the administration’s more formal request to block Ali’s ruling. The Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority includes three justices Trump appointed during his first presidential term.
Acting Solicitor General Sarah Harris said in a Supreme Court filing on March 3 that blocking Ali’s order “is warranted to prevent reinstatement of a new, short-fused deadline that would unlawfully commandeer federal payment processes anew.”
Harris argued that the judge’s order amounted to judicial overreach and had given the administration too little time to scrutinize the invoices “to ensure the legitimacy of all payments.” Lawyers representing the administration said in a separate February 26 filing that full payments could take weeks.
The Republican president, pursuing what he has called an “America First” agenda, ordered a 90-day pause on all foreign aid on his first day back in office on January 20. That order, and ensuing stop-work orders halting USAID operations around the world, have jeopardized delivery of life-saving food and medical aid, throwing global humanitarian relief efforts into chaos.
Aid organizations accused Trump in lawsuits of exceeding his authority under federal law and the US Constitution by effectively dismantling an independent federal agency and canceling spending authorized by Congress.
Aid organizations said in a Supreme Court filing on February 28 that they “would face extraordinary and irreversible harm if the funding freeze continues,” as would their employees and those who depend on their work.
The organizations’ “work advances US interests abroad and improves — and, in many cases, literally saves — the lives of millions of people across the globe. In doing so, it helps stop problems like disease and instability overseas before they reach our shores,” lawyers for the foreign aid groups wrote.
“The government’s actions have largely brought this work to a halt,” the lawyers wrote, adding that the Trump administration “comes to this court with an emergency of its own making.”
Among the plaintiffs in the litigation are the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition, Journalism Development Network, international development company DAI Global and refugee assistance organization HIAS.
The Trump administration had kept the disputed payments largely frozen despite a temporary restraining order from Ali that they be released, and multiple subsequent orders that the administration comply. Ali’s February 25 enforcement order at issue before the Supreme Court applied to payment for work done by foreign aid groups before February 13, when the judge issued his temporary restraining order.
Ali, who was appointed by Democratic former President Joe Biden, issued his temporary restraining order to prevent irreparable harm to the plaintiffs while he considers their claims.
Trump and his adviser Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, have taken dramatic steps to reshape and shrink the federal government. They have dismantled some agencies, fired thousands of workers, dismissed or reassigned hundreds of officials and removed the heads of independent agencies, among other actions.
As he moves to end American-backed humanitarian efforts in numerous countries, Trump’s administration has sent funding termination notices to key organizations in the global aid community. Global aid groups have said the US retreat endangers the lives of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people including those facing deadly diseases and those living in conflict zones.