Federal prosecutors say a man coordinated a bomb plot against American aircraft from inside a New York jail cell, using coded family phone calls to pull the strings.
Quick Take
- A federal grand jury unsealed an eight-count indictment against three men accused of working with Iran-backed groups.
- Prosecutors say the plot targeted RAF Fairford, a British air base that hosts U.S. military aircraft and troops.
- One defendant, already jailed in New York, allegedly used coded messages during family calls to direct the operation.
- Two separate men face British national security charges tied to a security incident at the same base last September.
Justice Department Unseals Sweeping Terrorism Case
The Justice Department announced on November 10 that a grand jury returned a superseding indictment against three men prosecutors call Iran-backed operatives. The charges cover roles in nearly 20 terrorist attacks and attempted attacks across Europe and the United States, including a September 2026 plot aimed at RAF Fairford. The indictment names Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, Mohsen Mohajeri, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani as the alleged conspirators.
Prosecutors gave each man a distinct role. Al-Hassani allegedly ran the Fairford operation directly. Mohajeri, identified as an Iranian national, is accused of helping build out the network behind it. Al-Saadi, already in federal custody in New York on earlier terrorism charges, allegedly kept directing the plot from behind bars by passing coded instructions to his co-defendants through third parties.
Coded Calls From a Jail Cell Allegedly Kept the Plot Alive
According to the indictment, al-Saadi used family phone calls to send hidden instructions tied to the Fairford operation, even while locked up awaiting trial on separate charges. Investigators say this method let him stay operationally involved despite being thousands of miles from the target and under constant government supervision. This detail has drawn wide attention since the announcement.
Al-Saadi is not new to this case. He had already pleaded not guilty in June to charges tied to at least 18 earlier attacks and publicly described himself as a prisoner of war rather than a defendant. His legal team pushed back hard on the coded-call theory in an October 14 court filing, arguing the alleged hidden language was speculative, rested on questionable Arabic translations, and had ordinary, innocent explanations.
A Base Security Incident Led to Separate British Charges
The Fairford allegations connect to a real security scare at the base the previous month. Reuters reported that two men appeared in a London court on October 27 charged under Britain’s National Security Act over a September incident at RAF Fairford, with prosecutors confirming the charges shortly after. The DOJ case ties the broader network to Kata’ib Hizballah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, both designated foreign terrorist organizations under U.S. law.
Analysts who track Iran’s overseas operations say this pattern isn’t new. Tehran has a long record of leaning on proxy militias and loosely connected intermediaries to strike Western targets while keeping its own fingerprints off the operation, spreading risk across layers of people who may not even grasp the full plan. That structure makes plots like Fairford harder to trace back cleanly, even after arrests are made public.
As wild as it gets. Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi is accused of helping direct from a New York jail a failed plot to attack #RAF #Fairford.
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DOJ unseals indictment charging 3 #Iran-backed operatives over a foiled September 2026 plot targeting RAF Fairford, the #UK base… pic.twitter.com/DbGQjSmjoc— Adrian Shtuni (@Shtuni) November 10, 2026
An indictment is a formal accusation, not a verdict, and all three men are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court. But the specifics laid out by prosecutors, a jailed operative allegedly running an overseas plot by phone, a base housing American troops as the target, and a parallel criminal case already underway in Britain, make this one of the more serious Iran-linked terrorism cases U.S. authorities have brought public in recent memory. The legal fights over translation, intent, and coordination are only beginning.
Sources:
justice.gov, abc17news.com, reuters.com, abc.net.au, icct.nl
