A B-1 bomber takes off from RAF Fairford in Fairford, England, September 29, 2026.
Alastair/AP Scholarship
hide caption
Alastair/AP Scholarship
Federal prosecutors in New York have charge three men charged with terrorism offenses for what they describe as a campaign of nearly 20 Iranian-backed attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the United States. The charges include a plot in September against a British air base where American forces were stationed.
The indictment, unsealed Tuesday, names Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, who has Iranian and Iraqi nationality, Mohsen Mohajeri, 48, Iranian, and Mohammed Ali Al-Hassani, 35, Iraqi.
Prosecutors say the men acted on behalf of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iraqi militia Kata’ib Hezbollah to orchestrate, plan and carry out the attacks through a network of associates across Europe and the United States, targeting Jewish communities and a British base housing American troops. The indictment alleges plots against synagogues in London and New York. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Kata’ib Hezbollah are designated by the United States as foreign terrorist organizations.
Court documents describe an operation led, in part, by the suspects who were thousands of miles away. In April, prosecutors say, the three men gathered in a room and watched an attack unfold live on a large screen via Apple’s FaceTime video calling app. Al-Hassani allegedly trained the attacker to light and throw a series of apparently incendiary devices while Al-Saadi filmed.
The next day, Al-Hassani is accused of guiding another man on a video call as he lit an improvised explosive and threw it at a London synagogue.
The men “helped orchestrate a campaign of terror” on behalf of the two designated terrorist groups, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Jamie McDonald.
The RAF Fairford Plot
The United Kingdom appears to have been a central target of the plot allegedly perpetrated by the three men: Of the approximately 18 attacks claimed last spring by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, which prosecutors say was a front for Kata’ib Hezbollah, no fewer than seven took place in the United Kingdom.
These included arson, the use of explosives and the near-fatal shooting of two Jewish men in London, one of whom had dual US-British citizenship.
Prosecutors say that in April, the men sat in a room and directed an attack remotely, in real time, via FaceTime, telling the attacker when to light and throw what appears to have been some sort of incendiary device.
The next day, one of the men, Mohammed Ali Al-Hassani, allegedly told another man attacking a London synagogue to “light it up like a Christmas tree.”
According to the indictment, Al-Hassani was operating from Iran, but he began paying associates in Britain in August to film the perimeter of RAF Fairford, Gloucestershire, several hours west of London.
They allegedly obtained vans and drums of fuel, explored the possibility of purchasing chemical accelerators and collected metal objects that could be used as shrapnel. The vans were fitted with fake branding for a fuel delivery company as well as a swimming pool supply company.
On September 26, three of these vans headed towards the base which housed numerous American military planes. At least two vehicles were stopped at a security roadblock, and British authorities stopped all three early the next morning and arrested those inside.
The United States almost immediately redeployed several of its long-range bomber planes from the base at the time of this incident.
The indictment says Al-Saadi was arrested overseas in May and taken to the United States, where prosecutors say he continued to run the network from his prison cell by relaying coded messages through phone calls to relatives in Iraq. He used pseudonyms to refer to his alleged co-conspirators and referred to terrorist activities, including ongoing alleged plots, as “work,” while his interlocutors used the phrase “international section” to refer to foreign travel, according to the indictment. His sister and mother were among those he spoke to during some of these calls. Three days before the plot, in late September, he allegedly asked them to hand over money to Al-Hassani for the RAF Fairford operation.
The British authorities had previously charge two men charged with national security offenses relating to the incident.
US soldier detained over Russia allegations
In a separate case, British counter-terrorism police announced on Tuesday that they had arrested a 41-year-old member of the US military on suspicion of offenses under sections 1 and 3 of the UK’s National Security Act 2023. Officers raided two addresses in the same area of Gloucestershire, west of London. The man, who has not been named, was detained at a London police station. Police said the allegations relate to Russia and the investigation is “ongoing”, according to Deputy Assistant Commissioner Vicki Evans, senior national co-ordinator for counter-terrorism policing in the UK.
FBI Director Kash Patel called the arrest significant amid a surge in FBI counterintelligence arrests, and said it “involves allegations of espionage” – without elaborating.
The man who was arrested was a high-ranking soldier, according to the brigadier general. Gen. Sean Stinchon, commanding general of the U.S. Army Counterintelligence Command. His arrest was, he added, a “sobering reminder that internal threats are real and persistent.”
The American footprint in Britain
Although unrelated, both cases occurred in the United Kingdom, a country that hosts a significant U.S. military presence. At the start of the war in Iran, the British Ministry of Defense confirmed In March, the British Parliament declared that American forces operated eleven RAF bases across the country, with approximately 12,300 American defense personnel and civilians spread across various locations.
Responding in January to a written question from a lawmaker, the department said there were about 11,000 uniformed U.S. military personnel in the country, not including families, civilians and contractors.
The ministry declined to give figures for each base, citing personnel safety.
The US Air Force’s two main operating bases are RAF Lakenheath and RAF Mildenhall in Suffolk in eastern England. Other sites include RAF Croughton, a communications station in Northamptonshire, and RAF Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, used mainly by the National Security Agency, according to a House of Commons library. briefing. RAF Fairford serves as a forward operating base for the US Air Force’s Global Strike Command.
In March, the British government authorized the United States to use British bases for limited strikes against missile sites in Iran, according to a parliamentary research service, which identifies Fairford as one of the bases potentially involved.
The threat picture around certain American bases seems to have intensified in recent days. The Wall Street Journal reportedciting people familiar with the matter, that the US military had withdrawn its planes from RAF Mildenhall on Monday due to an Iranian threat. NPR has not independently confirmed this information.
Neither the UK nor the US government has confirmed the reason for the reported aircraft movements. Britain’s Ministry of Defense said the planes were moving regularly for operational reasons.
Gn headline
