US charges three alleged Iran-backed operatives over attacks on Jews and British airbase plot
A superseding indictment alleges the three defendants helped coordinate nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks, including assaults on Jewish communities and a plot against a British base hosting US forces.
By Olga Menon ·
US prosecutors have charged three alleged Iran-backed operatives in connection with attacks and attempted attacks against Jewish communities and other targets in the United States and Europe, including a planned assault on a British airbase used by American forces. The Justice Department announced the charges Tuesday after a superseding indictment was unsealed in Manhattan federal court.
The defendants are Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national, Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national. Al-Saadi, who had already faced federal charges, is the only defendant in custody. Prosecutors allege the group participated in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks in support of Kataeb Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both designated foreign terrorist organizations by the United States.
According to the indictment, the network helped facilitate a series of attacks against European Jewish communities following the start of the Iran war. They included an April stabbing in London that left two Jewish men close to death and a firebombing of a synagogue in the city. The defendants allegedly used live video calls to direct assailants and circulated recordings afterward as propaganda.
In one April incident, prosecutors say all three defendants and other unnamed people gathered in a room while an attacker firebombed an unidentified Jewish charity in London. The attack was shown on a large screen through a FaceTime call, with al-Hassani allegedly providing instructions. The following day, according to the indictment, he spoke by video with another assailant attacking a London synagogue and urged him to set it ablaze. That attacker then ignited an explosive and threw it at the building.
Prosecutors also described an attempted synagogue bombing in New York and a plot against RAF Fairford, the British base housing American service members. They allege that al-Saadi continued trying to arrange attacks while imprisoned in New York, using coded communications with relatives to coordinate with the other defendants and direct funds to people capable of carrying out assaults.
The indictment adds details to an incident near RAF Fairford on September 27. Five men were detained after midnight on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offenses after three suspicious vans were seen heading toward the base in western England. A sixth man, a British-Iranian dual national, was arrested several days later. All six were subsequently released on bail.
British authorities connected that incident to Tehran, which denied involvement. Following the arrests, the United States withdrew bombers stationed at the base and returned them to their American home bases. RAF Fairford lies 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, west of London and has supported American bomber operations during decades of Middle East conflicts.
Al-Saadi pleaded not guilty in June to allegations that he planned at least 18 attacks across Europe in retaliation for the US and Israeli war with Iran. Prosecutors identify him as a Kataeb Hezbollah commander. He has remained in detention without bail since that plea, and his lawyers did not immediately respond Tuesday to requests for comment on the new indictment.
