The commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, a U.S.-sanctioned Iranian proxy militia, has been charged with plotting to attack a New York synagogue and other Jewish sites in the United States, the U.S. Justice Department said on Friday.
Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, an Iraqi national, was charged with six terrorism offenses connected to “nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States,” the department said.
Authorities allege that Al-Saadi discussed plots against a synagogue in New York, as well as Jewish institutions in Los Angeles and Scottsdale in April and May 2026.
Al-Saadi, a close associate of Qassem Soleimani, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force commander assassinated at the direction of U.S. President Donald Trump in a 2020 drone strike, sent photographs and maps of a Manhattan synagogue to an undercover law enforcement officer and discussed whether to use “an improvised explosive device” or “set the place on fire,” per the complaint.
Jessica Tisch, commissioner of the New York City Police Department, said that the NYPD worked with law enforcement partners to disrupt the plot.
The Justice Department said that Al-Saadi and associates claimed responsibility for at least 18 attacks in Europe and two in Canada under the name Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, a component of Kata’ib Hezbollah.
Among the incidents cited were an explosives attack on a Bank of New York Mellon branch in Amsterdam and an arson attack on a synagogue in North Macedonia.
FBI Director Kash Patel called the arrest “the latest success in this administration’s historic work to bring terrorists to justice.”
Al-Saadi appeared Friday before a federal magistrate judge in Manhattan and was ordered detained pending trial.
Zohran Mamdani, mayor of New York City, said that Al-Saadi was “targeting a Manhattan synagogue, as well as Jewish communities across the country.”
“I am relieved that everyone is safe,” he stated. “The unsealing of the terrorism-related charges comes amid an alarming rise in antisemitism across the country. Let me be clear: antisemitism, violent extremism and terrorism have no place in our city. This kind of hate is despicable.”
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, said that she is “grateful to law enforcement for disrupting this horrifying plot targeting Jewish New Yorkers.”
The Justice Department’s statement on Friday also tied al-Saadi to the stabbing of two Jewish men in London in late April. That attack had been claimed by a new, shadowy organization called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya.
Kata’ib Hezbollah, formed following the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and backed by the IRGC, has carried out attacks on American forces and diplomatic facilities.
While Iran’s other regional proxies, such as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthi rebels, have drawn greater notoriety, Kata’ib Hezbollah has flown under the radar by comparison.
It was in the news recently when the group kidnapped and later released Shelly Kittleson, an American journalist, in Baghdad.
