An eight-count indictment against two Iranians and an Iraqi was unsealed on Tuesday, charging the trio with almost 30 terror attacks in the United States and Europe, including a plot last month against a British air force base, where U.S. troops were stationed, the U.S. Justice Department said on Tuesday.
“The defendants listed in the indictment allegedly supported two foreign terrorist organizations,” stated Todd Blanche, U.S. attorney general.
Kash Patel, director of the FBI, stated that the “eight-count indictment shows the determination of Iran to commit terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States.” One of the three defendants, who is in jail awaiting trial, “allegedly sent coded messages to assist in future acts of violence,” Patel said.
Those “coded” messages were allegedly shared with family members over the phone, according to the Justice Department. The defendant allegedly told his sister, using a pseudonym for a co-conpirator, “what are they doing about all our old work,” to which she said, “it isn’t cancelled.”
“To date, the subjects have been allegedly involved in nearly 20 attempted attacks throughout Europe and the United States in support of Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, two U.S. designated foreign terrorist organizations,” Patel said.
The three suspects are Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi (a dual Iranian and Iraqi national), Mohsen Mohajeri (Iranian) and Mohammed AIi al-Hassani (Iraqi). They range in age from 32 to 48.
Mohajeri and al-Hassani face up to 90 years and life in prison, and al-Saadi faces up to 110 years and two life sentences, according to the Justice Department.
“The threat presented by Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups to America and our allies is not hypothetical,” stated Jamie McDonald, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York. “It is very real.”
The superseding indictment alleges that Al-Saadi coordinated with al-Hassani and Mohajeri, who were in Iran, while he was in jail awaiting trial on terror charges in the Southern District. In September, al-Hassani allegedly led a plot against the Royal Air Force Base in Fairford, in Gloucestershire, the Justice Department said.
Al-Saadi, a longtime Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps operative, was charged in May for planning some 18 terror attacks in Europe and “attempting to bomb a synagogue in New York,” the department said.
The group was part of a “purportedly new terrorist group with the pseudonym Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, which is a front for Kata’ib Hizballah and other foreign terror organizations,” according to the Justice Department.
“Of the 18 terrorist attacks in the spring of 2026 for which HAYI claimed responsibility in Europe, seven took place in the United Kingdom, the most of any European country,” it said. “The attacks involved arsons, explosives, and in one instance, a near-fatal stabbing in London of two Jewish men, including a dual U.S.-British citizen.”
The trio allegedly coordinated terrors attack in real time, while they watched a video feed. “Specifically, al-Saadi, al-Hassani and Mohajeri, along with others, were in a room watching a FaceTime video with the individual who was carrying out the attack, which was projected onto a large screen against the background of the HAYI logo,” the Justice Department said.
“Al-Hassani directed the perpetrators’ actions, including by instructing the individual on the other end of the call to execute the attack and directing that individual to take a lighter and ‘light one in your hand,’ ‘light it’ and ‘throw the fourth one,’” it said.
On or around April 18, al-Hassani took part “in another video call with an individual carrying out an attack on a synagogue in London, with the HAYI logo projected on the background of al-Hassani’s screen,” the department said. “During the video call, al-Hassani directed the individual to ‘light it up like a Christmas tree.’ The person on the video then lit an improvised explosive device and threw it at a building.”
