NEW YORK — Federal prosecutors on Tuesday unveiled terrorism charges against three men accused of plotting an explosive assault against a British military airfield that hosts American heavy bombers, an operation allegedly directed from inside a New York City federal lockup.
A superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York accuses Mohammad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual citizen of Iran and Iraq, of orchestrating the foiled September attack while detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Prosecutors charged al-Saadi alongside two Iran-based operatives, Mohsen Mohajeri and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani. Both men are allegedly linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Plotting Behind Bars
According to prosecutors, al-Saadi used monitored jailhouse telephone calls with his mother and sister in Iraq to transmit coded directions to his overseas confederates. Despite being held in solitary confinement following his May arrest in Turkey and subsequent extradition, al-Saadi allegedly oversaw the Fairford plot and gave the directive to move forward.
In recorded calls during June and July, al-Saadi asked relatives for updates on “all our old work” and was told it had not been canceled, the New York Post reported from court filings. Days before British authorities intervened, he allegedly instructed relatives to provide funding to al-Hassani “so we can do it.”
Court documents state that al-Hassani paid accomplices across the Atlantic to perform surveillance on Royal Air Force Base Fairford and assemble bomb materials. The conspirators allegedly gathered metal shrapnel, fuel drums, and chemical accelerants like potassium chloride, while outfitting three transport vans with fake signage for pool and fuel maintenance firms.
“Even after one of their co-conspirators was arrested and placed in federal custody, the defendants allegedly continued coordinating terrorist activity through coded communications and a network of associates overseas,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said in a statement.
Interception Near Fairford
The alleged assault targeted RAF Fairford, a Gloucestershire facility that serves as the European operating base for American B-1B Lancer aircraft deployed during strikes against Iran earlier this year. Tehran previously labeled bases utilized by American forces in those operations as legitimate targets, The Guardian US reported.
The plot unraveled on Sept. 27. According to The Guardian US, five London men were detained in the village of Whelford after a local farmer reported suspicious vans obstructing a road near the airfield. The New York Post reported that British police arrested seven men following the security alert before releasing them on bail.
Three vehicles were driven toward the base on Sept. 26, with two halted at an initial roadblock before all three were impounded by authorities the next day, according to the indictment. In response to the threat, the American military dispersed a dozen B-1B bombers to alternative airfields, the New York Post reported.
Wider Campaign Alleged
Al-Saadi had previously been charged with organizing 18 other terror attacks across Europe, including seven incidents in Britain. Those incidents included an assault on two Jewish men in London and an arson attempt targeting the Bank of New York Mellon in Amsterdam, prosecutors said. He was also accused of plotting to bomb a synagogue in New York City.
Al-Saadi has pleaded not guilty to prior charges and has framed himself in court proceedings as a prisoner of war reacting to American conflict with Iran. “I’m not a criminal. … Our children are being killed by your rockets,” he said through an interpreter during a June court appearance, according to the New York Post.
His defense attorney, Andrew Dalack, declined to comment Tuesday but stated in a court filing that al-Saadi was subjected to strict restraints at the Brooklyn jail, including waist chains and leg irons. It remains unknown whether co-defendants Mohajeri and al-Hassani have been taken into custody overseas.
