Prosecutors allege that an Iraqi man charged in New York on Friday is a commander linked to an Iran-backed militia who took part in planning dozens of attacks in Europe and the US in response to the Iran war.
Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al Saadi is accused of being a senior member of Kataib Hezbollah. He was charged on Friday with six counts of terrorism-related offences for his alleged activities as an operative of the militia and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
His lawyer says the Iraqi national is facing “political prosecution”.
Mr Al Saadi is accused of being involved in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks throughout the US and Europe. The US targets were a New York City synagogue and two Jewish institutions in Los Angeles, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona, according to prosecutors.
The criminal complaint also details a series of attacks in Europe beginning in early March, when a synagogue in Liege, Belgium, was attacked with explosives.
Four days later, on March 13, a synagogue in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, was set on fire in an arson attack. The following day, an explosion occurred at a Jewish school in Amsterdam, followed on March 15 by another blast at the Bank of New York Mellon in the same city.
Attacks continued through March and April in several cities throughout Europe, including London, Antwerp, Paris and Munich.
Mr Al Saadi is being held without bail in a federal facility in New York and faces life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against him.
“As alleged in the complaint, Al Saadi directed and urged others to attack US and Israeli interests and to kill Americans and Jews in the US and abroad, and in doing so advance the terrorist goals of Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC),” said US acting attorney general Todd Blanche.
“These charges show American law enforcement will never let such evil go unchecked and will use all tools to disrupt and dismantle foreign terrorist organisations and their leaders,” he said on X after Mr Al Saadi was charged.
Who is Al Saadi?
Mr Al Saadi, 32, is accused of being a commander in the Iran-backed Iraqi Kataib Hezbollah militia, a US-designated foreign terrorist organisation operating in Iraq. The designation followed years of attacks on US forces stationed in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq.
The complaint alleges that Mr Al Saadi worked closely with Qassem Suleimani, the longtime commander of the IRGC who was killed during a US air strike in early 2020, and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, who died in the same strike.
Mr Al Saadi’s social media accounts showed photographs of him with Maj Gen Suleimani at a military-related facility. Mr Al Saadi is alleged to have called on others to attack and kill Americans, including in retribution for the deaths of Maj Gen Suleimani and Mr Al Muhandis.
He posted about the attacks on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Telegram and spoke about them in phone calls recorded by an FBI informant whose help he solicited in planning attacks in the US, the complaint said.
Mr Al Saadi told the informant he was willing to kill people in any such attacks, prosecutors allege.
