Pakistan, March 6 -- A Daesh operative who allegedly helped carry out the 2021 suicide bombing outside Kabul airport during the chaotic US military withdrawal from Afghanistan appeared in a Virginia court on Wednesday.

Mohammad Sharifullah has confessed to scouting out the route to the airport, where the suicide bomber later detonated his device among packed crowds trying to flee days after the Afghan Taliban seized control of Kabul, the Justice Department said.

He did not enter a plea. His next appearance will be in the same courthouse on Monday, and he will stay in custody until then, the judge said.

Sharifullah - who the US says also goes by the name Jafar and is a member of the Daesh-Khorasan branch in Afghanistan - was detained by...