3 men charged with plotting terror attacks
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NEW YORK (AP):
A man jailed on terrorism charges in New York was able to pass secret messages to Iranian operatives planning an attack on a British air base used by the United States (US) Air Force, according to an indictment unsealed Tuesday.
The new indictment offers fresh insight into an episode shrouded in mystery since September 27, when a group of men were detained on suspected explosives and terrorism offenses after three suspicious vans were spotted traveling toward a British air base where US bombers were stationed.
The new charges accuse Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national jailed at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, of a role in plotting to attack the Royal Air Force Base in Fairford, in western England, even though he’d been arrested last spring.
According to prosecutors, al-Saadi used coded language in phone and video calls to his mother and sister in Iraq to pass messages encouraging associates to carry out the air base bombing.
Two other men have been charged in the case, which accuses Iran-backed operatives of plotting nearly 20 terror strikes on Jewish communities in Europe and the US.
Neither of those men, Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national, are in US custody.
‘Campaign of terror’
“These defendants helped orchestrate a campaign of terror on behalf of terrorist organisations affiliated with Iran that targeted Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, and the British military base, RAF Fairford, housing American service members,” said Manhattan US Attorney Jamie McDonald. “The threat presented by Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups to America and our allies is not hypothetical – it is very real.”
Attorney General Todd Blanche said: “Anyone who plans a terrorist plot on a military base housing American service members will be prosecuted by the United States government.”
Seven men arrested in the United Kingdom in connection with the incident at the RAF base in Fairford were all released on bail. One of those men was subsequently rearrested on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service and charged, along with another man, under the National Security Act, British authorities said.