The European Union has announced a crackdown on Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps propaganda, after the US revealed the mastermind behind attacks on Jewish and American targets in Europe.
Mohammad Al Saadi, 32, is reportedly behind Harakat Ashab Al Yamin Al Islamia, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right Hand.
Also known as Ashab Al Yamin, the group has claimed responsibility for a cycle of violence that began on March 9 with an arson attack on a synagogue in Belgium, followed by others in the Netherlands, France and the UK. The attacks were accompanied by videos made by the perpetrators.
The emergence of the shadowy group soon led to speculation that the IRGC was pulling the strings through Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, as The National reported at the time.
Its ability to recruit people through social media to carry out the attacks without the need for face-to-face contact with its spies has opened a new front for Iran in its efforts to destabilise European countries.
Europol has now responded with a crackdown on the IRGC’s social media presence in a bid to trace and remove statements and videos produced by proxy groups and aligned entities, including Ashab Al Yamin.
The EU’s law enforcement agency says it has identified 14,200 posts linked to the IRGC and its proxies, spread across mainstream social media platforms, as well as streaming services, blog hosting sites and websites.
The action revealed the IRGC's reliance on a network of hosting service providers, from Russia to the US, to maintain an online presence, and the use of cryptocurrency to bypass sanctions.
The UK has recently become a focus of Ashab Al Yamin attacks, which began with the firebombing of ambulances run by the Jewish charity Hatzola in Golders Green on March 23. Britain's counter-terrorism police have since made 28 arrests linked to various similar incidents.
Mr Al Saadi’s arrest in Turkey this month and subsequent extradition to the US to face charges in a New York Court lifted a lid on how Ashab Al Yamin has been able to spring from nowhere to carry out attacks across Europe.
Prosecutors say Ashab Al Yamin is a “front” of Kataib Hezbollah designed to carry out and further its terrorist goals and those of the IRGC, despite attempts to portray itself as a separate organisation.
The group was “essentially overnight … able to activate cells across Europe to carry out nearly 20 attacks in the weeks immediately following the start of the Iranian military conflict”, on February 28 this year.
The indictment contains details given by an FBI investigator and based on recordings of phone calls from an informant named as SOL-1 to Mr Al Saadi.
In one call, Mr Al Saadi boasted about “running multiple teams” and personally claimed credit for the attack in Belgium, as well as others in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
He “has been involved in the planning, execution and promotion of these attacks” while at the same time posting videos of them on his Telegram and Snapchat accounts, the investigator said.
“In the span of just three months, Mohammad Al Saadi allegedly directed 18 terrorist attacks throughout Europe – including against United States citizens and interests – and planned to conduct a similar attack here in our country,” said FBI assistant director James Barnacle.
The investigator said Ashab Al Yamin’s founding statement was broadcast on well-known media channels in the Shiite militant community, which Kataib Hezbollah, Lebanese Hezbollah and the IRGC “regularly use to disseminate propaganda and information”.
The group’s logo is also “strikingly similar” to that of Kataib Hezbollah, all of which led to the conclusion that Ashab Al Yamin is “merely a component” of the Iraqi group, which is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the US and is under sanctions.
It was able to call on an “already well-established media and ideological infrastructure” to disseminate propaganda videos.
Prosecutors said Mr Al Saadi had also sought to orchestrate attacks inside the US, including targeting a synagogue in New York, and Jewish centres in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona.
He is alleged to have transferred thousands of dollars to an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a member of a Mexican drug cartel who claimed he could carry out the attacks.
Mr Al Saadi has been charged with six counts of terror-related offences for his activities as an alleged operative of Kataib Hezbollah and the IRGC, including his alleged involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the US. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
It is alleged Mr Al Saadi worked closely with Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, the long-time commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, who was killed in a US air strike in early 2020, and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, who died in the same attack in Baghdad.
