US charges three alleged Iran-backed operatives over nearly 20 attacks and plots, including one at a British air base housing US troops

NEW YORK (Nov. 10) — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unsealed terrorism charges against three men they describe as Iranian-backed operatives, accusing them of roles in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the United States and a September plot at a British air base where American forces were stationed, the Justice Department said.

The eight-count superseding indictment, filed in Manhattan federal court, names Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national; Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national; and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national. Prosecutors say the three worked in support of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kata'ib Hizballah, both designated by the U.S. as foreign terrorist organizations, according to the department and Axios. Only al-Saadi is in custody, DW reported.

The newest allegations center on Royal Air Force Base Fairford in western England, which housed U.S. military aircraft and personnel at the time. Prosecutors say al-Hassani orchestrated the plot there in about September and that he and Mohajeri, both in Iran at the time, relied on a network of contacts in Britain. British authorities responded to suspicious vehicles near the base in late September, evacuated nearby homes and arrested five people, DW reported, and the U.S. has since withdrawn its bombers from the base.

Al-Saadi was already jailed in Brooklyn awaiting trial on terrorism charges filed in May, which include an alleged attempt to bomb a synagogue in New York, according to the Justice Department. Prosecutors now say he kept coordinating from jail, using coded language in phone and video calls to his mother and sister in Iraq to pass along messages encouraging associates to carry out the air base attack, The Associated Press reported.

The Justice Department said al-Saadi helped plan and promote about 18 attacks in Europe in the spring, claimed under the name Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, which it describes as a front for Kata'ib Hizballah. Seven took place in the United Kingdom, and they included arsons, explosives and the near-fatal stabbing of two Jewish men in London, one of them a dual U.S.-British citizen. AFP reported that the attacks also included arson at synagogues, Israeli businesses and Jewish schools in Amsterdam, Munich and elsewhere.

"The threat presented by Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups to America and our allies is not hypothetical — it is very real," U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald for the Southern District of New York said in the department's announcement.

The charges include conspiring to provide material support to Kata'ib Hizballah and the IRGC, each carrying a maximum of 20 years in prison, and conspiring to bomb a place of public use, according to the Justice Department and AFP. An indictment is an allegation, and the defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty.