NYC: Iraqi terrorist with ties to IRGC charged with planning to attack targets including synagogues
Al-Saadi is a commander of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia that is a proxy for Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp and has helped Tehran project power across the region and overseas
A commander of an Iran-backed Iraqi terror militia was charged in a federal court in New York with plotting to attack Jewish sites in the United States and Europe, including a synagogue in New York.
The indictment unsealed on Friday accused Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi of planning at least 20 attacks in the US, Europe and Canada since late February, the date of the launching of the US-Israeli war against the Islamic Republic. He was nabbed in Turkey and handed over to US authorities.
Al-Saadi is a commander of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia that is a proxy for Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp and has helped Tehran project power across the region, including through attacks on American forces and diplomatic targets. Kata’ib Hizballah, which has received extensive training, funding, logistical support, weapons, and intelligence from the IRGC’s external operations force, the IRGC Qods Force.
Al-Saadi worked closely with Qasem Soleimani, the longtime commander of the IRGC-QF who was killed during a U.S. airstrike in or about 2020, as well as Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was the leader of Kata’ib Hizballah until he was killed in the same airstrike that killed Soleimani.
In addition to authoring detailed plans to attack Jewish and American targets, Al-Saadi has publicly called on others to attack and kill Americans, including in retribution for Soleimani’s and al-Muhandis’s deaths.
In February 2026 Al-Saadi posted on one of his social media accounts a message in Arabic reading “Do not abandon the blood of your Imam of the time, oh Shiites of Iraq. Kill everyone who supports America and Israel. Do not leave any of them remaining. Civil and military targets, as well as voices of discord, kill them everywhere.”
Over the last several months, Al-Saadi and his associates have planned, coordinated, and claimed responsibility for at least 18 terrorist attacks in Europe as well as two additional attacks in Canada, in the name of Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a component of Kata’ib Hizballah.