US indicts three men over alleged 'terror' attacks in US and Europe, including UK air base plot
Prosecutors in the United States have charged three men they describe as Iranian-backed operatives over their alleged role in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across the US and Europe, including a plot targeting the United Kingdom’s Fairford air base.
The Department of Justice said on Tuesday that the three men acted in support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah.
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It identified the men as Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, Mohsen Mohajeri and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, who face what it called “terrorism-related offenses”.
Al-Saadi is already in jail in New York. Prosecutors did not disclose the whereabouts of Mohajeri and al-Hassani.
The charges announced on Tuesday centre on RAF Fairford in southwest England, where US forces and bombers had been stationed. The US had used the base to deploy bombers in its war against Iran.
Police were called to the Fairford site in September after a local farmer reported seeing a group of men with several white vans engaged in “suspicious” activity.
Six men were arrested in connection with the episode, and all were released on bail. Two were subsequently re-arrested on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service and charged under the National Security Act.
Iran has strongly denied any involvement in the incident.
Days after the incident, the US withdrew all of its B-1 bombers from Fairford.
A US charging document said that al-Hassani, a 35-year-old Iraqi national, directed others to drive to the base in the vans, some of which carried barrels of fuel. Prosecutors say he had earlier paid the group to buy metal objects that could serve as shrapnel and to disguise the vans as fuel delivery vehicles.
Prosecutors said al-Saadi, 32, who holds Iranian and Iraqi citizenship, passed coded messages to al-Hassani and Mohajeri, a 48-year-old Iranian, to coordinate the plot.
Al-Saadi did so, they said, in phone calls to his mother and sister in Iraq, using coded language.
“These defendants helped orchestrate a campaign of terror on behalf of terrorist organizations affiliated with Iran that targeted Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, and the British military base, RAF Fairford, housing American service members,” said Manhattan US Attorney Jamie McDonald.
“The threat presented by Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups to America and our allies is not hypothetical – it is very real.”
There was no immediate comment from Iran on the charges.
US authorities first detailed the charges against al-Saadi in May, accusing him of directing others to attack US, Israeli and Jewish targets and to kill Americans, in retaliation for the US-Israel war on Iran.
Those attacks included the nonfatal stabbing of two Jewish men in London in April and arson attacks on synagogues, Israeli businesses and Jewish schools elsewhere in Europe.
Al-Saadi has been in US custody since May.
In June, he pleaded not guilty to those charges and called himself a “prisoner of war”. He has been held without bail since his arrest.
The indictment on Tuesday added his alleged role in the Fairford plot and charges the other two men.
Flight-tracking data showed on Tuesday that the US military had removed at least a dozen aircraft from a second UK airbase, RAF Mildenhall, following what the Wall Street Journal said was a threat from Iran.