A man jailed on terrorism charges in New York was able to pass secret messages to Iranian operatives planning an attack on a British airbase used by the US Air Force, according to an indictment unsealed. The new indictment offers fresh insight into an episode shrouded in mystery since September 27, when a group of men were detained on suspected explosives and terrorism offences after three suspicious vans were spotted travelling toward the air base where US bombers were stationed.
The new charges accuse Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn, of a role in plotting to attack the Royal Air Force Base in Fairford, in western England, even though he’d been arrested last spring. According to prosecutors, al-Saadi used coded language in phone and video calls to his mother and sister in Iraq to pass messages encouraging associates to carry out the air base bombing.
Two other men have been charged in the case, which accuses Iran-backed operatives of plotting nearly 20 terror strikes on Jewish communities in Europe and the US
Neither of those men, Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national, are in US custody. “These defendants helped orchestrate a campaign of terror on behalf of terrorist organisations 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.” Attorney General Todd Blanche said: “Anyone who plans a terrorist plot on a military base housing American service members will be prosecuted by the United States Government.”
Six men initially arrested in the United Kingdom in connection with the incident at the RAF base in Fairford were all released on bail, but two were later re-arrested on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service and were charged under the National Security Act, British authorities said. British authorities linked the incident to Tehran, and though Iran denied involvement, the arrests prompted the US to withdraw its bombers that had been stationed there. The bombers were redeployed to the United States.
RAF Fairford, about 160 kilometres west of London, has been used by American bombers during decades of conflicts in the Middle East. US prosecutors said in the indictment that while speaking to his family from the Brooklyn jail, al-Saadi told them he owed money to Mohajeri and directed them to pass messages to him about “work,” a term al-Saadi used to describe terrorist activity.
“What are they doing about all our old work?” al-Saadi asked his sister on a July 30 call, according to the indictment. It said he asked her whether it had been cancelled or just put on pause, to which she responded that “it isn’t cancelled.”