US federal prosecutors have charged an Iranian operative jailed in New York over a foiled attack on a British air base. American B-1 bombers were stationed at the base. A new indictment says Mohammad Dawood al-Saadi planned the September attack on RAF Fairford while in US custody, The Guardian reported. Al-Saadi holds both Iranian and Iraqi citizenship.
According to the indictment, al-Saadi passed on his plans through coded messages in phone calls to his family. The family was to relay them to Mohsen Mohajeri, an operative of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and to another Iranian, Mohammad Ali al-Hassani. Prosecutors say the plan involved buying large quantities of chemicals that could be used as explosives. Al Jazeera reported that the US has charged three men over the plot.
The indictment claims al-Hassani then tasked others with watching the base. They were also told to get vans and barrels of fuel. They researched buying chemical accelerants and metal objects to use as shrapnel. Prosecutors allege al-Saadi wanted revenge for the US war in Iran.
The plot unravelled on September 27. That day, police arrested five men from London in the village of Whelford, near RAF Fairford. They were held on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences. A farmer had reported vans blocking a road near the base as she drove home from a party.
US attorney Jamie McDonald said the defendants helped run a terror campaign for Iran-linked groups. He said the campaign targeted Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, as well as the base housing American service members. McDonald said the men kept coordinating terrorist activity through coded messages even after one of them was taken into custody. He added that the threat from Iran and Iran-backed groups to America and its allies was "not hypothetical" but "very real".
Al-Saadi already faced charges. The Southern District of New York says he is linked to 18 terrorist attacks in Europe and planned to bomb a synagogue in New York. Prosecutors also accuse him of ties to Kata'ib Hezbollah and the IRGC.
RAF Fairford is the European home for US Air Force bombers. The US flew from the base during its bombing campaign against Iran. In July, the IRGC said any bases used by the US to attack Iran, including Fairford, were "legitimate targets".