Militia Commander Tied to Iran Plotted Attacks on US Jewish Sites: Prosecutors

A commander of an Iranian-backed militia has been charged with plotting to attack Jewish sites in the United States, including a synagogue in New York, and carrying out attacks in Europe as part of a broader campaign of retaliation by Iran since the war began in February.

A criminal complaint unsealed Friday accused the commander, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, of planning at least 20 attacks in Europe and Canada since late February. Al-Saadi was detained in Turkey sometime recently and handed over to U.S. authorities, al-Saadi’s lawyer said in federal court in New York City on Friday.

Al-Saadi, according to the complaint, is a commander of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iraqi militia that is a proxy for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and has helped Tehran project power across the region, including through attacks on U.S. forces and diplomatic targets.

From its inception, the militia has been closely tied to Iran’s Quds Force — the overseas arm of the powerful Revolutionary Guard. It made evicting U.S. forces from Iraq a primary focus. Kataib Hezbollah’s repeated attacks on U.S. Army posts in Iraq and Syria over the years contributed to Washington’s decision in 2009 to designate it as a foreign terrorist organization.

Attacks Planned for LA and New York City

The complaint says that al-Saadi planned to kill Americans and Jews in Los Angeles and that he had started planning an attack on a synagogue in New York City. As a leader of Kataib Hezbollah, al-Saadi worked with Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran’s security machinery, according to the complaint. The U.S. military killed Soleimani in a strike in 2020.

Al-Saadi is one of the highest-level figures tied to Iran known to have been arrested by the United States since the war began. For years, and during the current conflict, the United States and Israel have focused on killing Iranian officials.

His case appears to involve the kind of retaliatory act of terrorism that U.S. officials have long anticipated and feared.

Kataib Hezbollah has been accused of attacks on U.S. Army posts in Iraq and Syria. The group has long been one of the most important groups in Iran’s regional network of armed proxies.

Al-Saadi and his associates have planned, coordinated and claimed responsibility for at least 18 terrorist attacks in Europe and two additional attacks in Canada, the complaint says. It also accuses al-Saadi of directing others and trying to coordinate attacks in the United States, including in New York City.

Complaint: al-Saadi Worked Closely With Gen. Soleimani

The complaint says al-Saadi, a high-level member of Kataib Hezbollah, worked closely and in person with Soleimani, who led the Quds Force before he was killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike near the Baghdad airport. The government said al-Saadi also worked closely with the Iraqi militant leader who led Kataib Hezbollah, known by the nom de guerre Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who was also killed in the 2020 U.S. drone strike.

Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iraqi militia that was formed after the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, became a leading faction in the Popular Mobilization Forces, the militia umbrella later folded into Iraq’s security apparatus during the war against the Islamic State group.

Its reach beyond the Middle East is less clear, and the Iraqi militant group does not have a well-documented record of global operations. Compared with several of Iran’s other allies, including Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, Kataib Hezbollah has emerged largely intact from the past two years of war in the Middle East. In March, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the group kidnapped and later released Shelly Kittleson, an American journalist, in Baghdad.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Benjamin Weiser and Olivia Bensimon

c.2026 The New York Times Company

The post Militia Commander Tied to Iran Plotted Attacks on US Jewish Sites: Prosecutors appeared first on GV Wire.