Former US Navy sailor plotted attack on naval station on behalf of Iran

Xuanyu Harry Pang awaits sentencing after planning to attack Chicago naval station 'with intent to injure, interfere with and obstruct the national defence of the United States'

Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, was involved in a plot to conduct an attack on the US to avenge the death of Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, a major figure in Iran’s IRGC Quds Force. Reuters

A former US Navy sailor has pleaded guilty to plotting to attack a naval station in Chicago, Illinois, purportedly on behalf of Iran, the Department of Justice said on Thursday.

Xuanyu Harry Pang, 38, pleaded guilty on November 5, with the plea unsealed on Friday. He was accused of planning to carry out the attack on Naval Station Great Lakes in North Chicago, “with the intent to injure, interfere with and obstruct the national defence of the United States”.

According to court records, in the summer of 2021 Pang communicated with a person in Colombia about assisting with a plan involving “Iranian actors” to conduct an attack against the US to avenge the death of Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, the head of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force who was killed in a US air strike on Baghdad in 2020.

An FBI employee, posing as an affiliate of the Quds Force, communicated with the person in Colombia, who put the employee in touch with Pang, who at the time was stationed at Naval Station Great Lakes.

“The pair communicated online through an encrypted messaging application about possible targets for the attack, including Naval Station Great Lakes and other locations in the Chicago area,” the Department of Justice said.

On three occasions, Pang met another person working with the FBI who was posing as an associate of the other FBI employee pretending to be affiliated with the IRGC. During the meetings, Pang displayed photos and videos on his phone of locations inside the naval station and provided two US military uniforms for use in the attack, as well as a mobile phone that could be used as a test for a detonator.

He will be sentenced at a later date but faces a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The plea comes after a Pakistani man was in August charged with plotting to assassinate a US politician on behalf of the IRGC. Another Pakistani man was charged that same month with planning to engage in an attack in New York on the anniversary of the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.