Iraqi Militant Charged with Plotting Attacks on American and Jewish Targets
Charges Against Iraqi Militant
U.S. prosecutors have leveled accusations against an alleged Iraqi militant, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, who is reportedly affiliated with Iran-backed factions. He is accused of orchestrating attacks aimed at American and Jewish interests across Europe and North America. Sources have indicated that he even contemplated targeting Ivanka Trump. Al-Saadi, 32, was apprehended in Turkey on May 15 and subsequently extradited to the United States, where he faces multiple charges related to a series of attacks and terror plots.
Documents from the U.S. Department of Justice allege that Al-Saadi was involved in 18 different attacks and attempted assaults, which included targeting American and Jewish locations. Specific charges involve the firebombing of a Bank of New York Mellon office in Amsterdam, a stabbing incident involving two Jewish individuals in London, a shooting at the U.S. consulate in Toronto, and assaults on synagogues in Liège and Rotterdam.
According to reports, Al-Saadi expressed intentions to retaliate against Ivanka Trump for the 2020 U.S. drone strike that resulted in the death of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad. A former deputy military attaché at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, Entifadh Qanbar, stated that Al-Saadi had been vocal about the need to target Ivanka Trump, saying, 'we need to kill Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump the way he burned down our house.'
Qanbar also mentioned that Al-Saadi had a map indicating the Florida neighborhood where Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, reside. An additional unnamed source corroborated the alleged plot, revealing that Al-Saadi had shared an image online depicting the vicinity of the couple's home, accompanied by a message in Arabic that threatened Americans, stating: 'We are currently in the stage of surveillance and analysis. I told you, our revenge is a matter of time.'
Prosecutors assert that Al-Saadi has connections to both Kata’ib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Elizabeth Tsurkov, a senior fellow at the New Lines Institute who was kidnapped in Baghdad in 2023 and later freed, informed that Al-Saadi maintained close relationships with high-ranking Iranian military officials following Soleimani’s assassination. Court documents reveal that investigators found Al-Saadi frequently posting images on social media that appeared to show him with armed groups, missiles, and senior Iranian commanders. Federal filings also included images that allegedly depicted him consulting with Soleimani at what seemed to be a military site. In a social media post from 2020, Al-Saadi stated: 'I will leave social media and turn off all my phones until the American enemy is defeated … victory or martyrdom.' Prosecutors noted that he continued to post threats online, including messages directed at potential victims featuring images of a silenced handgun.