Federal prosecutors charged Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a 32-year-old alleged commander for Kata’ib Hizballah, a U.S.-designated Iraqi terrorist organization backed by Iran, with coordinating at least 18 attacks across Europe targeting Americans and Jews, and plotting to bomb a New York City synagogue in retaliation for the war in Iran.
Al-Saadi believed he was paying a Mexican cartel member $10,000 to carry out the synagogue bombing. The person was an undercover federal agent. Al-Saadi demanded the attack be recorded on video, set a deadline of April 6, and texted the following morning asking why it hadn’t happened, according to a federal criminal complaint unsealed Friday in the Southern District of New York. He also sent the agent maps of the synagogue, along with the addresses of Jewish community centers in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona.
Al-Saadi made his initial court appearance Friday and a judge ordered him detained pending trial. No plea was entered. Prosecutors brought three charges: conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, conspiracy to provide material support for acts of terrorism, and conspiracy to bomb a place of public use.
Prosecutors allege al-Saadi joined Kata’ib Hizballah in 2017 and ran attacks under the name of a front organization, Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya (HAYI). A source close to Kata’ib Hizballah told CNN that some HAYI members are Iraqi and that the two groups are linked.
The European campaign opened March 9, when assailants bombed a synagogue in Liege, Belgium. Over the following weeks, attackers struck a synagogue in Rotterdam, a Jewish school in Amsterdam, Bank of New York Mellon offices in Amsterdam, and the Bank of America building in Paris, the complaint says. April brought arson at a Jewish charity in London and the stabbing of two Jewish men there on April 29. Two additional attacks hit Canada: a synagogue and the U.S. consulate in Toronto.
Officials have not disclosed how or when al-Saadi was arrested. Aviation records reviewed by reporters show a DOJ extradition plane traveled to Turkey earlier this week, stopped in Morocco on its return, and touched down outside New York late Thursday night.
Al-Saadi’s attorney, Andrew J. Dalack, said Turkish authorities arrested his client at U.S. request and transferred him without an opportunity to contest his detention. Dalack called his client a political prisoner.
Al-Saadi maintained direct ties to senior figures in U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations, including Esmail Qaani, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, and Akram Abbas al-Kabi, secretary general of the Iran-backed militia Harakat al-Nujaba, prosecutors said.
His Snapchat account also reportedly featured a photo of himself with Qasem Soleimani, the IRGC commander killed in a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in January 2020.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said the case showed both the persistence of the threat and the reach of American law enforcement.
