Federal authorities arrested and charged an alleged senior member of an Iran-backed militia for his involvement in planning to carry out terrorist attacks in the U.S. in retaliation for the Iran War.
Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi national, is accused of having “directed and urged others to attack U.S. and Israeli interests, including by killing Americans and Jews” on behalf of Kata'ib Hezbollah, a powerful Iraqi Shiite militia backed by Iran, according to the criminal complaint.
Federal authorities say Al-Saadi, a Kata'ib Hezbollah commander, planned to attack a New York City synagogue and two Jewish centers in Los Angeles, California, and Scottsdale, Arizona. The complaint alleges that Al-Saadi provided an undercover law enforcement officer, who was posing as a Mexican cartel member, with photographs and maps showing the locations of his targets. He is also charged with conducting attacks in Canada and Europe.
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New York City Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Friday that Al-Saadi was “targeting the heart of our Jewish community.”
“In my 18 years in government, I have not seen a threat environment quite like this one,” Tisch said at Temple Emanu-El on the Upper East Side, which was not a target of the plot. “Today’s case is a stark example of how these tensions that originate overseas translate into violence.”
She said the synagogue chosen for the attack was selected because it was “a beacon for solidarity and support to Israel,” Tisch said.
"The attack never occurred because the defendant was, in fact, plotting with an undercover law enforcement officer,” she said, adding that “the threat was identified, monitored and controlled from the outset."
Al-Saadi, who was transferred into United States custody overseas before being brought to the U.S., appeared in Manhattan federal court on Friday, as his arrest was announced to the public. He faces charges including conspiracy to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations, conspiracy to bomb a place of public use, and attempted destruction of property by means of fire or explosives. He was arrested in Turkey and brought to the United States to face charges.
According to the complaint, Al-Saadi agreed to pay an undercover informant $10,000 for the attacks on the synagogue and two Jewish centers. In a recorded call, he reportedly told the undercover agent that he would send them the full $10,000 if they would “set the three locations on fire at the same time.”
Al-Saadi subsequently paid around $3,000 in cryptocurrency in anticipation of the attack on the New York synagogue.
The complaint also accused Al-Saadi and co-conspirators of carrying out a bomb attack against the Bank of New York Mellon building in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, in mid-March, and an attempted attack on the Bank of America building in Paris, France, on March 28.
Investigators say Al-Saadi maintained personal relationships with top-tier military leaders, including the former IRGC-Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in 2020.
Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute and an expert on Iran-backed militias, described Al-Saadi as “like the Iranian Jack Ryan,” referring to the fictional CIA operative created by author Tom Clancy.
“There’s no group in Iraq closer to Iran than Kata'ib Hezbollah,” Knights tells TIME, “and there's almost no one more senior within KH than Al-Saadi.”
No Iran proxy group has ever successfully killed an American on American soil, but Kata'ib Hezbollah has been linked to numerous attempts to “kill Americans all the time in Iraq, Jordan, and has succeeded in doing so,” Knights says.
The militia’s attempt to expand its attacks to U.S. soil, he says, was likely to enact "special and unprecedented revenge attacks” for the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes.
At court in Manhattan, Al-Saadi’s defense lawyer, Andrew Dalack, claimed he is a “political prisoner” and a “prisoner of war”, and that the government was persecuting him for his relationship with Soleimani.
What do we know about the Iran-backed militia behind the plot?
The arrest and unveiled plans have cast a spotlight on Kata’ib Hizballah, one of Iran’s most powerful proxy groups, which appears to have expanded its efforts to carry out attacks in the United States.
The Shiite militia was founded in the aftermath of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, and was designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. in 2009 after a series of bombings, sniper and mortar attacks against military and diplomatic targets.
According to the U.S. Counterterrorism guide, the militia includes about 7,000 to 10,000 members who have conducted at least 150 attacks against US forces in Iraq and Syria since October 2023.
The group works “extensively” with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps–Quds Force (IRGC-QF), according to the U.S. government, as well as the Lebanon-based Hezbollah. It also operated in support of the Assad regime in Syria.
Kata’ib Hezbollah was behind several recent kidnappings in Iraq, including that of the American journalist Shelly Kittleson, who was kidnapped in Baghdad in March 2026 and released on April 7 after about a week in captivity. The group also kidnapped researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov in Baghdad in March 2023 and held her hostage for 903 days before her release in September 2025.
In the mid-2010’s, Kata’ib Hezbollah joined other Shiite groups in the loosely organized coalition called the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) to fight against ISIS in Iraq. Though the PMF now exists under the supervision of Iraq’s national security forces, it fights with significant independence.
In the recent conflict between the U.S. and Iran, the PMF carried out frequent drone and rocket attacks on U.S. targets in Iraq. The U.S. responded with airstrikes against PMF targets, including Kata’i’b Hezbollah, targeting local bases and commanders.
Knights believes this latest arrest may spur pressure on Iraq to take action against the group.
“This is the sort of thing that makes it a lot easier for people in the U.S. to say, ‘Maybe Iraq's a state-sponsor of terrorism, unless it gets rid of these PMF—of which KH is a part of and of which 10,000 of their members are paid as Iraqi government employees,’” Knights says.
“There’s even more impetus to this idea that the Iraqis have to do something about groups like Kata’ib Hezbollah.”
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