The man American prosecutors call a senior Kataib Hezbollah commander spent his first days in a US courtroom this month facing charges that he helped plot attacks on Jewish institutions from London to Los Angeles. Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi was taken into custody in Turkey and flown to New York, where a grand jury indicted the 32-year-old in May.
Prosecutors describe al-Saadi as a high-ranking member of Kataib Hezbollah with “close ties to the IRGC and Hizballah.” They allege he “planned, coordinated, and claimed responsibility for at least 18 terrorist attacks in Europe,” along with “two additional attacks in Canada,” carried out in the name of a group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya.
The charges trace a string of incidents that began in March. A synagogue in Liège, Belgium, was hit with explosives on March 9, prosecutors say, followed days later by an arson attack at a Rotterdam synagogue, an explosive at a Jewish school in Amsterdam, and a blast at the Bank of New York Mellon, also in Amsterdam. On April 29, two Jewish men were stabbed in London.
In the United States, the complaint says, al-Saadi tried to recruit an undercover agent he believed was a Mexican cartel member to attack a prominent New York synagogue, showing the man a photograph and a map of the location. On a recorded April 1 call, prosecutors say, he asked what it would cost to hire someone “to carry out a bombing operation,” and discussed setting three Jewish sites on fire at once.
His lawyer, Andrew Dalack, has called the case a “political prosecution” and said al-Saadi is “being held in solitary confinement, which we think is cruel and unnecessary.”
Todd Blanche, the acting attorney general, said the arrest showed American law enforcement working to “disrupt and dismantle foreign terrorist organizations and their leaders.” Al-Saadi allegedly worked closely with Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian commander killed in an American airstrike in 2020.
Sources
- Mohammad Baqer al-Saadi: Profiling an IRGC and Iraqi Militia Operative – Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- US charges Iraqi with plots to target Jews in cities from London to LA
