US accuses 3 men of planning multiple terror attacks, including planned attack on British air base

Three men, including one already imprisoned in the United States, were accused by American authorities on Tuesday of being Iranian-backed operatives who planned nearly 20 attacks on Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, as well as a planned assault on a British air base used by the American Air Force.

Charges against Mohammad Al-Saadi, dual Iranian-Iraqi national; Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national; and Mohammad Ali Al-Hassani, an Iraqi national, were identified in a superseding indictment unsealed in federal court in New York.

Only Al-Saadi — a suspected pro-Iran terrorist who allegedly planned attacks across Europe, Canada and the United States, as first reported by NBC News — is in custody.

U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald in New York said in a news release that Al-Saadi, who was arrested in the spring, continued to coordinate with his co-defendants in the days before the attempted terrorist plot in September at a British Royal Air Force base in Fairford, where U.S. bombers and troops were stationed.

“As alleged, these defendants helped orchestrate a campaign of terror on behalf of Iranian-affiliated terrorist organizations that targeted Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, as well as the British military base RAF Fairford, which houses U.S. military personnel,” said McDonald, whose office is handling the case.

“The threat that Iran and Iranian-backed terrorist groups pose to America and our allies is not hypothetical – it is very real,” he added in the statement.

The new indictment offers fresh insight into an episode that remained shrouded in mystery for more than a month after five men were arrested after midnight on September 27 on suspicion of explosives and terrorist offences, after three suspicious vans were spotted heading towards the base in the west of England.

The Justice Department’s indictment alleges that Al-Hassani paid associates to provide surveillance at RAF Fairford in August and paid several people to further the plot in September “by obtaining pickup trucks and fuel barrels, seeking the purchase of chemical accelerators, including large quantities of potassium chloride, and purchasing metal objects that could be used as explosive shrapnel.”

The group even made custom stickers to make the vans look like they were used by a fuel company and a swimming pool supply company, according to authorities.

Al-Hassani then allegedly asked people to go to the base with the fuel when British law enforcement arrested the men.

Al-Saadi helped direct the RAF Fairford plot while he was incarcerated in the United States, according to the indictment. He made video and phone calls to family members in Iraq, who allegedly transmitted coded messages to Al-Hassani and Mohajeri.

In a phone call with his sister in July, Al-Saadi asked: “What do we do with all our old work?” » — a reference to terrorist activity — according to investigators.

His sister responded, “It’s not canceled,” investigators said.

The indictment alleges that the three men conspired to use a network of contacts in the United Kingdom to carry out terrorist attacks on behalf of an Iranian-aligned terrorist network, which included Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kata’ib Hezbollah.

In June, Al-Saadi pleaded not guilty to charges that he planned at least 18 attacks in Europe in retaliation for the US-Israeli war against Iran.

The U.S. government has designated Kata’ib Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards as foreign terrorist organizations.