A Tajikistan government source has called the Taliban's claim that the terrorist attack on the Kabul airport in August 2021 was carried out by a Tajik citizen "a complete lie."
Dushanbe, March 8 - Sputnik Tajikistan. The attack killed about 170 Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers.
Earlier, CBS News, citing a "senior Taliban official," reported that they were holding two Tajik citizens named Sharifullah, who were sentenced to long prison terms for participating in the bombing of the Abbey gate of the Kabul airport and other attacks.
"We do not know of a person named Mohammad Sharifullah who is an Afghan citizen, and the only people with that name in Kabul are two Tajik citizens who are in a Taliban prison," the "senior official" said.
A Sputnik Tajikistan source in the Tajik government said that the Tajik citizen imprisoned by the Taliban is named Kholmurodov Sharifkhon, not "Sharifullah," and that he is one person, not two people with the same name (other details of the person's identity are available to Sputnik Tajikistan and are not being disclosed for privacy reasons).
"The terrorist attack in Kabul took place in August 2021, but the man reached Afghanistan in November of that year from Russia, where he was a labor migrant. He first moved to Turkey, and from there, he went through the Van Valley in that country and Iran to Afghanistan. Sharifkhon did not even have combat experience; he was arrested upon entering Afghanistan," the source said.
According to him, you will not find the name Sharifullah in Tajikistan, and in Afghanistan it is a common name for men.
“In Tajikistan, you can come across the names Sharifkhan, Sharifbay, Sharifkhodja, Sharifbek, Mohammadsharif, etc., but not Mohammad Sharifullah. It is obvious that the Taliban’s claims are a complete lie, but we do not understand why they would mention Tajikistan. The US and Pakistani intelligence services are not so inexperienced as to extradite a citizen of another country by mistake, and Donald Trump personally thanked Pakistan in the US Congress,” the source said.
Meanwhile, Pakistani and American media, citing official sources, report that Mohammad Sharifullah, nicknamed “Jafar,” was one of the leaders of ISIS-Khorasan and an Afghan citizen who planned an attack in Kabul on August 26, 2021. The attack, which took place at the Abbey gate of the Afghan capital’s airport, killed about 170 Afghans and 13 American soldiers.
