A suspected senior planner in the suicide bombing at the Kabul airport that killed 13 American service members during the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan has been taken into custody and is being brought to the United States to face charges, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday night.

Senior Pakistani intelligence officers on Wednesday confirmed the arrest and said the suspect was captured in the country's restive southwest Balochistan province near the border with Afghanistan after multiple operations had failed to seize him.

Trump, in a joint address to Congress said he was "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.”

The White House identified the man as Muhammed Sharifullah and described him as having “orchestrated the Abbey Gate attack.” FBI Director Kash Patel, who attended Trump's address, posted on the social media platform X that the arrest was “one step closer to justice for these American heroes and their families.”

In the horrific August 2021 attack, two suicide bombers and gunmen attacked crowds of Afghans flocking to Kabul’s airport in the waning days of an airlift for those fleeing the Taliban takeover of the country