While President Trump gave a speech to Congress on Tuesday night, for the first time since he entered the White House again, one country made a surprising Cameo: Pakistan.
Mr. Trump thanked the Pakistani government for the role in the recording of the Islamic State’s regional leader related to the 2021 attack at the Kabul airport in Afghanistan, which killed 13 members of the US service and dozens of Afghan civilians.
The president’s announcement of the arrest signaled the possible strengthening of terrorism between Pakistan and the United States, just as the Pakistani government seeks international support in the fight against the reconnection of terrorism within the borders of the country.
Pakistan, a nuclearly armed nation of about 250 million people, moves with a complex network of internal and external pressures. In the country, armed groups like Pakistani Taliban in the north and ethnic separatists in the south are dramatically Raise attacks. At the same time, the country struggles with deepening economic instability and constant political turmoil after the premiere of Prime Minister Imran Khan 2022.
Outside the Pakistani borders, the departure of the United States from Afghanistan in 2021 changed its regional dynamics. Pakistani leaders are increasingly clashing with the Taliban government in Afghanistan, where militant groups – some aligned with the Taliban, and some opposed to them – grow. And Pakistani spread of alliances with China has been strangled with relations with the United States, which has reduced the assistance of Pakistan since the end of the Afghan war.
Mr. Trump’s statement about the detention of what he called “top terrorist” comes because Pakistan experienced three suicide bombing in two unstable provinces for just four days.
It was believed that one of these attacks, at the Islamic Seminary in Pakistan, was associated with the Afghan Taliban, performed a regional branch of the Islamic State, known as Isis-K. This suggests that the wave of attacks of a group that targets the taliban leaders in Afghanistan has now entered Pakistan with Killing pro-Italian figures.
Adam Weinstein, Deputy Director of the Middle East Program at the Quincy Institute, a Washington Research Center, said “a thank you note is not a small victory for Pakistan from President Trump,” a country seeking recognition for its efforts against terrorism in the region.
He emphasized, however, that the powerful army of Pakistan seeks more than gratitude. He wants a security partnership that actively targets his enemies, especially Tehrek-ealiban Pakistan, also known as Pakistani Taliban. Pakistan’s leaders accuse the Taliban administration in Afghanistan that they have installed a group and allowing him to perform cross -border attacksaccusations that Taliban officials in Kabul are denied.
Experts noted that the surgery of capturing a man associated with the Kabul 2021 airport attack highlighted the current intelligence cooperation between the United States and Pakistan-Barre against mutual threats such as ISIS-K, a group that represents global security risks.
In a Social Media Statement On Wednesday, Pakistani Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif, thanked Mr. Trump for the “recognition and respect” of support of his country in efforts against terrorism throughout the region.
US and Pakistani officials said the United States provided the intelligence to Pakistan, who led to the capture of Mohammad Sharifullah, an Afghan nationwide who is the ISIS-K leader.
Mr. Sharif said Mr. Sharifullah was arrested “in a successful surgery conducted in the Pakistanan-Afghanistan border region.” The Prime Minister did not say exactly where Mr. Sharifullah was captured.
On Wednesday, a spokesman for the Taliban administration in Afghanistan, Zabihullah Mujahid, hard that the arrest served as “proof” of the ISIS-K hideouts on Pakistani soil.
Iftikhar Firdous, editor of Khorasan Diery, research organization based in Islamabad, which supervises the militant groups, said Mr. Sharifullah was involved in dozens of attacks in Afghanistan since Isis-K joined the 2016.
He said that Mr. Sharifullah was previously arrested by the US Ashraf Ghani administration in Kabul, but was released when the Taliban released about 1,700 stubborn militants after taking over the 2021 power.
Ministry of Justice news Interfered with Mr. Sharifullah in the attack of ISIS-K Last year in suburban Moscow This was killed by more than 130 people. Mr. Sharifullah flew to the United States on Wednesday and accused of violating the statute of terrorism.
“Coordination between the main intelligence agency CIA -ei Pakistan” arresting Mr. Sharifullah, Mr. Firdous said, “signifies another case of a long history of cooperation that the US and Pakistan will depend on each other, even if these are not boots on the ground.”
AND Global Terrorism Index Published by the Institute of Economics and Peace, the International Research Center, Pakistan occupied as a country that is the second affected by terrorism, after Burkina Faso.
Terrorist attacks in Pakistan have been at the highest level since 2014. Death cases associated with terrorism increased by 45 percent in 2024 during the year before, at 1,081, while the attacks were more than doubled, from 517 to 1,099.
On Tuesday night, two suicide bombers associated with the local Pakistani commander Taliban’s vehicles were packed with explosives in a military base in Bann County in the Province of the Northwestern Province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before other attackers broke into the meeting. At least 18 people were killed, including five soldiers, and dozens were wounded, according to the Pakistani army.
On Monday, the suicide bomber aimed at the Calata security forces, in the southwestern province of Balochistan, killing a paramilitary soldier and injuring four others.
On Friday, in a suspicious attack by the suicide attack, ISIS-K on the seminary, six worshipers in the mosque were killed in the Nowsher district at Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
While the American Pakistanian cooperation in the arrest of suspected in the attack by Kabul Airport raised her hopes in Pakistan further assistance in the fight against terrorist groups, she also had political consequences.
Mr. Khan’s supporters, a prime minister who was overthrown after he turned out with the army, hoped that Trump’s administration would encourage his release from prison. This expectation is increased after the close allies of Mr. Trump made statements supported by Mr. Khan.
But these hopes can now be reduced after the praise of Mr. Trump Pakistani Government, which the army had long led behind the scenes, political analysts said.
Pakistani Military Boss “just won in the second round in his showdown with Imran Khan,” said Sadanand Dhuma, an older associate at the American Enterprise Institute, said On social media. The Pakistani army, he added, “did not lose its unusual ability to install with the one in power in Washington.”
