The latest: Federal indictment uncovers prison-directed air base terror plot
NEW YORK — November 11, 2026.
The United States Department of Justice unsealed a sweeping eight-count superseding indictment in Manhattan federal court, charging three operatives linked to the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Kata'ib Hezbollah in an international terrorist conspiracy that targeted American military personnel stationed in the United Kingdom.
According to federal court records unsealed before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon, the defendants coordinated a sophisticated operation to attack RAF Fairford—a strategic Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, England, heavily utilized by U.S. Air Force heavy bombers and combat flight crews. In an astonishing security revelation, prosecutors revealed that the plot was coordinated from inside a federal prison cell in New York by lead defendant Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, who allegedly passed operational blueprints and coded instructions during telephone and video visitations.
Al-Saadi, 38, a dual Iranian and Iraqi national already in custody at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn following his extradition from Turkey earlier this year, was charged alongside two at-large co-conspirators: Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national, and Mohammed Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national.
Three disguised fuel delivery vans intercepted by British authorities
The unsealed indictment details a chilling operational timeline that began in late summer 2026. Operating under al-Saadi’s remote guidance and foreign wire transfers, covert operatives in the United Kingdom conducted intensive reconnaissance on RAF Fairford, monitoring base access control points, perimeter fencing, flight line hangars, and shift change patterns of deployed U.S. airmen.
In September, the cell acquired three commercial utility vans and outfitted them with realistic aftermarket commercial decals, designed to mimic legitimate regional fuel delivery and pool supply service contractors. Investigators determined that the vehicles were loaded with multiple 55-gallon steel drums filled with diesel fuel, industrial chemical accelerants, detonating cords, and dense metal fragments engineered to maximize lethality as shrapnel.
The conspiracy called for operatives to ram the disguised fuel trucks through the installation's security gates and detonate them near flight line staging areas and troop quarters. The catastrophic attack was thwarted when British counterterrorism police, working in tandem with the U.K. Security Service (MI5) and the FBI, intercepted the vehicles and arrested the drivers in an armed interdiction just days before the planned operation.
How coded jail calls from MDC Brooklyn guided international cells
One of the most alarming aspects of the Justice Department's unsealed case is how al-Saadi allegedly operated an active terrorist network while held in federal detention on U.S. soil. Having been arrested in Turkey in May 2026 and extradited to the Southern District of New York on prior material support charges, al-Saadi was subject to Bureau of Prisons detention protocols at MDC Brooklyn.
Prosecutors allege that al-Saadi systematically bypassed institutional monitoring by utilizing approved calls and remote video visits with family members in Iraq. During these interactions, al-Saadi spoke in layered colloquial Arabic and religious allegories, using pre-arranged code words to convey specific instructions regarding wire transfers, operative recruitment, target selection, and explosive procurement.
Federal agents executing search warrants recovered encrypted mobile devices and hand-copied financial transaction logs from the cell, documenting tens of thousands of dollars wired through third-country hawala networks directly into bank accounts controlled by the UK-based operatives.
Eight felony counts link network to 20 attempted attacks across Europe
The superseding indictment charges al-Saadi, Mohajeri, and al-Hassani with eight felony offenses, including conspiracy to provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations (specifically the IRGC and Kata'ib Hezbollah), conspiracy to bomb a place of public use and government facility, financing terrorism, and weapons offenses carrying potential life sentences.
Beyond the Fairford base conspiracy, federal prosecutors disclosed that intelligence uncovered during the investigation links the same command network to a campaign of nearly 20 attempted or executed attacks across Europe and North America over the past eighteen months. Targets identified in court filings included synagogues, Jewish community centers, diplomatic properties, and logistics nodes affiliated with Western and Israeli interests.
“As alleged, these defendants orchestrated a ruthless plot to slaughter American and allied military service members on foreign soil, believing an international border and a prison wall would shield them from justice,” stated senior Justice Department counterterrorism prosecutors. “The reach of American and allied intelligence has dismantled this conspiracy from its prison-cell inception to its operational logistics.”
