The United States Department of Justice has indicted three men, described as Iranian-backed operatives, for their alleged involvement in nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks across the US and Europe. The individuals, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, Mohsen Mohajeri, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, face terrorism-related charges, with one of them already in prison in New York. The indictment centers around RAF Fairford, a UK airbase used by the US military, where the accused are alleged to have plotted an attack.
On September 2020, suspicious activity involving several white vans and a group of men was reported on the Fairford site, leading to the arrest of seven individuals. Two were subsequently re-arrested under the National Security Act for suspected assistance to Iran's intelligence service. The US has accused al-Hassani, a 35-year-old Iraqi national, of directing others to drive to the base in vans carrying fuel barrels and metal objects intended as shrapnel. Al-Saadi, who holds dual citizenship from Iran and Iraq, is alleged to have communicated coded messages with al-Hassani and Mohajeri to coordinate the plot using phone calls to his family members in Iraq.
Iran has denied any involvement in these incidents, following which the US withdrew all B-1 bombers from Fairford shortly after the incident. The charges against al-Saadi, initially detailed in May, accuse him of planning attacks on US, Israeli, and Jewish targets as retaliation for the US-Israeli war on Iran. These attacks included a nonfatal stabbing of two Jewish men in London and arson attacks on synagogues, Israeli businesses, and Jewish schools elsewhere in Europe.
In a recent development, flight-tracking data showed that at least a dozen aircraft were removed from RAF Mildenhall following an alleged threat from Iran. The US authorities have not disclosed the whereabouts of Mohajeri and al-Hassani, and there has been no immediate comment from Iran on the charges.