An Iranian operative accused of planning dozens of anti-Semitic attacks in Europe and the US has been reportedly plotting further assaults from behind bars.
US authorities believe Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al Saadi has been using coded messages in telephone calls from prison to push others into carrying out new plots, directing $1million in money transfers and overseeing the release of propaganda videos.
The accusations are contained in US Department of Justice documents reported by The Times.
Mr Al Saadi, a 32-year-old dual citizen of Iran and Iraq, was charged in New York in May with six counts of terrorism-related offences for his alleged activities as an operative of the Iraqi militia group Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Both organisations have been placed under sanctions and designated as terrorist groups by the US.
He is also alleged to be behind Harakat Ashab Al Yamin Al Islamia, also known as Ashab Al Yamin, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right Hand and has been blamed for a series of fire-bombings at Jewish locations in London and synagogues in Europe.
The US targets were a New York City synagogue and two Jewish institutions in Los Angeles, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona, according to prosecutors.
UK security services have said that more than 50 Iran-linked arrests have been made in the past year as Tehran’s plots against targets in the UK intensify.
Mr Al Saadi was extradited to the US from Turkey and is being held without bail in a federal centre in New York. He is expected to face trial next summer and faces life in prison if convicted of the most serious charges against him.
His legal team has said he faces “political prosecution” and complained about the measures he is subject to in detention, including near-solitary confinement and strict limits on contact with family.
“By keeping Mr Al Saadi in extreme solitary confinement and aggressively curtailing his access to information, the government is violating his rights under the constitution and the third Geneva Convention. We will continue to vigorously challenge these inhumane conditions,” The Times quoted his lawyers, Federal Defenders of New York, as saying.
They said the reasons for the restrictions did not hold up to scrutiny and relied on speculation and misinterpretation.
The documents filed by the Justice Department highlight suspicion that Mr Al Saadi used a FaceTime call with a woman thought to be his mother to urge further attacks. A video of the call in which he said “we shall not care whether we fall upon death or death falls upon us as long as we are on the path of truth” was shared on social media and viewed almost 100,000 times.
In a phone call, he asked about a member of Kataib Hezbollah and “work” for what the FBI believe is an IRGC operative. The FBI cut short one call in which there was reference to a gun and money.
The Justice Department documents said there were concerns he was “enlisting third parties to engage in certain conduct, including planning or even carrying out more attacks such as the European terrorist attacks”.
Commander
Mr Al Saadi is accused of being a commander in Kataib Hezbollah which was placed under sanctions after years of attacks on US forces stationed in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq.
Mr Al Saadi is alleged to have worked closely with Maj Gen Qassem Suleimani, the commander of the IRGC's Quds Force, who was killed during a US air strike in early 2020, and Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Mahdi Al Muhandis, who died in the same strike.
Mr Al Saadi’s social media accounts showed photographs of him with Maj Gen Suleimani at a military-related facility. Mr Al Saadi is alleged to have called on others to attack and kill Americans, including in retribution for the deaths of Maj Gen Suleimani and Al Muhandis.
He posted about the attacks on social media platforms such as Snapchat and Telegram and spoke about them in phone calls recorded by an FBI informant whose help he solicited in planning attacks in the US, the complaint said.
Al Saadi told the informant he was willing to kill people in any such attacks, prosecutors allege.