US Charges Three Iran-Backed Operatives Over Alleged RAF Fairford Bomb Plot and Attacks on Jewish Communities

The United States Department of Justice has charged three men it describes as Iran-backed operatives with planning a series of terrorist attacks in Europe and the United States, including an alleged bomb plot against RAF Fairford, the Gloucestershire airbase used extensively by the United States Air Force. The eight-count superseding indictment, unsealed on Tuesday, November 10, 2026, in federal court in Manhattan, names Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi national already in custody in New York, Mohsen Mohajeri, an Iranian national, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, an Iraqi national, and accuses them of acting in support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iran-aligned Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah. Prosecutors say the three men helped direct a campaign of nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks, many of them aimed at Jewish communities, and that the Fairford operation was the most recent activity in that campaign. The charges offer the fullest public account yet of a September incident near the base that had been shrouded in mystery for more than a month, after three suspicious vans were spotted heading towards the airfield and five men were detained in the early hours of September 27. US charges Iran-backed operatives RAF Fairford plot November 2026: the allegations have not been proven in court, and only one of the three men is in American custody.

1. The Charges Unsealed in Manhattan

The indictment was unsealed on Tuesday, November 10, in the Southern District of New York, and it was announced by the Justice Department the same day, with the Attorney General, Todd Blanche, among the officials presenting the case. It is a superseding indictment, which means it replaces and expands an earlier set of charges, adding the alleged RAF Fairford plot and the involvement of two men who had not previously been charged in the case. Federal prosecutors in New York have been building the investigation for months, and the new filing pulls together strands that had previously been reported separately: the September incident at Fairford, a series of alleged plots against Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic, and a network of contacts in Britain that prosecutors say was directed from abroad. The case will now proceed through the federal court in Manhattan, where the one defendant in custody is already being held.

1.1 The Three Men Named in the Indictment

The three defendants are identified in the indictment by name, nationality and custody status, and the differences between them matter to how the case will unfold. Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, aged 32, is a dual Iranian-Iraqi national who was arrested in the United States in the spring of 2026 and has been held in a jail in New York on terrorism charges ever since. Prosecutors say he continued to coordinate the alleged network from behind bars. Mohsen Mohajeri, aged 48, is an Iranian national who was not in American custody when the indictment was announced, and Mohammad Ali al-Hassani is an Iraqi national who was likewise not in United States custody. The two men at liberty are the subject of the most urgent practical question in the case: whether the United States can bring them before a court in New York, and what steps, if any, other governments will take to arrest or extradite them. No extradition request has been publicly confirmed.

1.2 Eight Counts, From Material Support to Bombing Conspiracy

The indictment contains eight counts, and together they cover the full range of the alleged campaign rather than a single incident. The men are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to designated terrorist organisations, specifically the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kataib Hezbollah, and with providing material support for acts of terrorism. They are also charged with conspiring to bomb a place of public use, a count that reaches the alleged Fairford operation directly, and with terrorism financing. The breadth of the charges is significant, because it allows prosecutors to present the Fairford plot not as an isolated episode but as part of a single alleged conspiracy with a common purpose and common direction. Each count carries its own penalties under American law, and the case will turn on whether prosecutors can prove, count by count, that the three men knowingly acted together in support of the two organisations named in the indictment.

2. The RAF Fairford Plot

The centrepiece of the indictment is the alleged plot against RAF Fairford, a Royal Air Force station in Gloucestershire, about 100 miles west of London, that has long been used by American bombers during operations in the Middle East. The base is one of the most important American airfields in Britain, and it has housed B-1 bombers and the personnel who support them. Prosecutors say the plot against it was planned over weeks, financed from abroad, and carried out by associates in Britain who were directed and paid by the men named in the indictment. The operation, as described in the filing, was stopped before any explosion took place, but the fact that it got as far as it did, with vehicles moving towards the perimeter in the dark, is what has made the case a matter of public alarm on both sides of the Atlantic.

2.1 Surveillance in August, Vans in September

According to prosecutors, the Fairford operation began in August 2026, when al-Hassani allegedly directed and paid associates in Britain to conduct surveillance of the base’s perimeter, watching its fences, gates and patrols ahead of a planned attack. The same month, prosecutors say, he financed the practical preparations: the associates were paid to secure vans and fuel barrels, to research chemical accelerants including large quantities of potassium chloride, and to buy metal objects that could be turned into shrapnel in an explosion. The plan, as the indictment describes it, was to use the vans as the means of delivering the attack, loaded with fuel and with material designed to increase the damage. The surveillance and the purchases took place over several weeks, and it was only in late September that the operation moved from preparation to action, when the vans were driven towards the base.

2.2 The Farmer, the Roadblock and the Seized Petrol

The attempt itself unfolded over the night of September 26 and 27, and it was stopped by a combination of a security roadblock and an alert member of the public. On September 26, drivers attempted to move three vans towards the base perimeter, but at least two of the vehicles were turned away at a security roadblock. In the early hours of September 27, a local farmer spotted the vehicles and alerted the police, who declared a major incident and seized petrol from the vans. Five men were detained after midnight on September 27 on suspicion of explosives and terrorism offences, and a sixth suspect, a British-Iranian dual national, was arrested several days later. British counterterrorism police have been investigating the incident since then, and the American indictment now provides the most detailed public explanation of what the police believe the men were doing. The petrol, the vans and the roadblock are the hard facts of the case; what the men intended to do with them is what the courts will now have to decide.

3. A Campaign Prosecutors Say Spanned Two Continents

The Fairford plot is only one part of the case, and prosecutors have framed it as the latest chapter in a much wider campaign. The indictment alleges that the three men conspired together to use a network of contacts in the United Kingdom to commit terrorist attacks on behalf of an Iran-aligned network, and that the same network was behind a series of plots in Europe and the United States. The scale of the alleged campaign is what gives the case its gravity: it is not presented as a single failed attack on a single airbase, but as a sustained effort, directed from above, to strike targets in several countries over a long period. That framing will shape both the trial and the political response, because it connects an incident in rural Gloucestershire to a pattern of alleged violence across the Western world.

3.1 Nearly 20 Attacks and Attempted Attacks

Prosecutors say the investigation involves nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks in Europe and the United States, a figure that has been repeated in the Justice Department’s own announcement and in reporting of the indictment. The Fairford operation is described as the most recent alleged activity in that series, which means the campaign, as prosecutors see it, was already under way before the vans moved towards the base in September. The details of the other alleged attacks have not been set out in full in the public reporting of the indictment, and it is not yet clear how many of them were carried out and how many were stopped in advance. What is clear is that the number is large enough to have made the case a priority for American and British investigators alike, and that the indictment treats the separate incidents as parts of one conspiracy rather than as unrelated crimes.

3.2 The Jewish Communities Named as Targets

The indictment says that many of the alleged plots targeted Jewish communities in the United States and in Europe, and that charge is the most serious in moral as well as legal terms. The United States Attorney in New York, Jamie McDonald, said in the announcement of the charges that the defendants had helped direct a campaign aimed at Jewish communities in Europe and the United States, as well as at RAF Fairford. The targeting of Jewish communities, if proven, would place the case in the context of a wider rise in antisemitic violence that has alarmed governments across Europe and North America. Prosecutors have not yet published a full list of the Jewish targets, and the details of individual plots remain to be tested in court. But the allegation itself has already drawn attention from community organisations and from governments, and it is likely to be a central theme of the trial.

4. The Man Prosecutors Say Directed the Plot From a US Jail

The most striking claim in the indictment is that the Fairford operation was directed by a man who was already in an American jail. Al-Saadi, the dual Iranian-Iraqi national, was arrested in the United States in the spring of 2026, months before the vans moved towards the base, and he has been in custody in New York ever since. Prosecutors say that did not stop him. They allege that he continued to coordinate with his co-defendants in the days leading up to the attempted September attack, passing instructions through coded messages while he was behind bars. If that allegation is proven, it will raise difficult questions about how a detained man was able to communicate with an alleged network abroad, and about the security of the jail in which he was held.

4.1 Coded Messages From Custody

According to the indictment, al-Saadi passed coded messages to al-Hassani and Mohajeri to coordinate the plot ahead of the September operation, and he continued to do so in the days immediately before the vans were driven towards Fairford. The use of coded communications is a familiar feature of terrorism cases, and prosecutors say the messages were part of the system through which the network operated: instructions passed from a man in custody in New York to associates in Britain, who then carried out the surveillance, bought the materials and drove the vehicles. The details of the codes have not been made public, and it is not yet known how the messages were transmitted or whether they were intercepted in real time. What matters for the case is that the messages, if they exist as described, would link the man in the New York jail directly to the men on the ground in Gloucestershire.

4.2 The Group Behind the Name HAYI

The indictment also alleges that the three men operated under the name Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, known by the acronym HAYI, which translates as The Islamic Movement of the People of the Right Hand. The name has not previously been widely known, and its appearance in the indictment is the first public indication that prosecutors believe the network had a formal identity of its own. Prosecutors say the group acted in support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kataib Hezbollah, the two organisations named in the charges, and that its members worked together as part of that wider alignment. The extent to which HAYI is a real organisation with its own structure, rather than a name used by a small group of associates, is not yet clear, and it is one of the many questions the trial will have to answer.

5. The Bombers Leave Fairford

The consequences of the September incident were visible within days, and they were measured in aircraft. The United States removed all of its B-1 bombers from RAF Fairford after the incident, a withdrawal that was confirmed in reporting at the time and again in the coverage of the indictment. The decision to move the bombers was a direct response to the threat against the base, and it showed how seriously the American military took the attempt. A base that had been used for decades as a home for American bombers in Britain was suddenly empty of the aircraft that gave it its strategic importance, and the withdrawal became, in itself, a measure of the damage the plot had done even though no bomb had gone off.

5.1 The September Withdrawal of the B-1 Fleet

The withdrawal of the B-1 bombers from Fairford took place in the days after the September incident, and it was reported at the time as a security measure following the discovery of the suspicious vans. The B-1 is a long-range bomber that has been a mainstay of American operations from Britain, and Fairford has been its principal base in the country. The decision to remove the entire fleet, rather than to increase security and keep the aircraft in place, suggested that the authorities regarded the threat as serious and continuing, not as a one-off attempt that had been fully dealt with. The bombers have not returned, and the indictment now explains, in the prosecutors’ account, why the withdrawal was ordered: the base had been the target of a planned attack directed from abroad.

5.2 RAF Mildenhall and the Wider Security Picture

The security picture widened further in the days around the indictment, when flight-tracking data showed that the American military had removed at least a dozen aircraft from a second British airbase, RAF Mildenhall, following what was described as a heightened security threat. The Wall Street Journal reported the Mildenhall movement, and the report was picked up in coverage of the Fairford case, although the connection between the two withdrawals has not been officially confirmed. The United States has also been reported to be evacuating aircraft from RAF Mildenhall amid heightened threat assessments linked to Tehran, and the broader picture is one of American forces in Britain being moved and protected in response to a threat that officials believe has not yet passed. Whether the Mildenhall movement is part of the same case, or a separate precaution, is not yet clear, and it is one of the questions that the coming days may answer.

6. What the US Government Says the Case Proves

The American government has presented the indictment as proof of a threat that is both organised and directed from the highest levels of Iran’s security establishment. The officials who announced the charges spoke in strong terms, and their language was aimed as much at the public as at the court. The case, in their telling, is not about three men acting alone, but about a state-backed network that used proxies, coded messages and associates in Britain to strike at American and allied interests. That is a serious claim, and it carries consequences far beyond the courtroom, because it touches on the relationship between the United States, Britain and Iran at a moment when tensions between them are already high.

6.1 The Justice Department’s Case in Its Own Words

The United States Attorney in New York, Jamie McDonald, said in the announcement that the case centred on conduct that put both American and allied interests at risk, and that the defendants had helped direct a campaign aimed at Jewish communities and at RAF Fairford, where American bombers and troops had been stationed. The Attorney General, Todd Blanche, was among the officials who presented the case, and the Justice Department’s statement described the three men as Iranian operatives. The language matters, because it is the government’s case that the men were not independent actors but operatives working for others, and that the others were the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kataib Hezbollah. The indictment itself will have to prove that connection, and the trial will test whether the evidence supports the description the government has given.

6.2 The FBI and the IRGC Connection

The Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Kash Patel, said that the accused had acted in support of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah, a statement that places the case squarely in the context of American policy towards Iran. The IRGC is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, and Kataib Hezbollah is an Iraqi militia aligned with Iran that has been blamed for attacks on American forces. The allegation that the three men acted in support of those two organisations is the foundation of the material support charges, and it is what makes the case a matter of national security rather than an ordinary criminal prosecution. The FBI’s involvement also signals the scale of the investigation, which has drawn on intelligence and law enforcement resources in the United States, Britain and elsewhere.

7. Iran’s Denial and the British Arrests

The case has two sides, and the response from Tehran and from the British courts is part of the story. Iran has denied any involvement in the Fairford incident, and the Iranian embassy in London has rejected the allegations, describing the claims linking Iran to the incident as unfounded. In Britain, meanwhile, the men arrested in September have been moving through the British legal system, with some charged under the National Security Act and others released on bail. The two tracks, the American indictment and the British prosecutions, will now run in parallel, and the relationship between them is not yet fully clear.

7.1 The Embassy’s Rejection of the Claims

The Iranian embassy in London rejected the allegations in the indictment, describing the claims linking Iran to the RAF Fairford incident as baseless and denying any Iranian involvement in the plot. The denial was reported alongside the announcement of the charges, and it follows the pattern of Iranian responses to similar accusations in the past: a flat rejection, with no engagement with the specific evidence set out in the indictment. Iran has strongly denied any involvement in the incident, and it is likely to maintain that position as the case proceeds. The denial does not, by itself, settle anything. It is a statement of position, and the question of whether the evidence supports the prosecutors’ account will be decided in court, not in diplomatic statements.

7.2 The Men Arrested in Britain

In Britain, the September incident produced its own set of arrests and charges, and those cases are separate from the American indictment. Seven men were arrested in Britain in connection with the episode, according to one report, and six men were arrested in total according to another, a difference that reflects the way the arrests were counted across the two nights and the days that followed. Two British nationals have appeared in court, and two men were subsequently re-arrested on suspicion of assisting Iran’s intelligence service and charged under the National Security Act. The British cases are proceeding through the courts in the United Kingdom, and their outcome will be watched closely, because a conviction in Britain would lend weight to the American case, while an acquittal or a collapse of the British prosecutions would raise questions about the evidence on both sides of the Atlantic.

8. What Happens Now

The indictment is the beginning of a legal process, not the end of one, and the most important questions about the case are still unanswered. The trial in New York will test the prosecutors’ account of the Fairford plot, the wider campaign and the role of the three men, and it will do so in a courtroom where the defendants are entitled to challenge every part of the case against them. The two men who are not in custody will have to be found and brought before the court before the case against them can proceed in full. And the British cases, the Iranian denial and the security of American bases in Britain will all continue to develop alongside the American proceedings.

8.1 The Court Case in New York

The case will now proceed through the federal court in the Southern District of New York, where al-Saadi is already in custody and where the superseding indictment was unsealed. The next steps will include arraignment on the new charges, the setting of a trial date, and the disclosure of evidence to the defence, a process that will take months. Whether Mohajeri and al-Hassani will be arrested, and whether they will be extradited to the United States, remains unknown, and it is possible that the case against them will proceed in their absence for some time. The trial, when it comes, will be a test of the evidence: the coded messages, the surveillance, the purchases and the movements of the vans, and the link, if any, between those facts and the two organisations named in the indictment.

8.2 The Bottom Line

The United States has charged three men with planning a terrorist campaign that prosecutors say included nearly 20 attacks and attempted attacks in Europe and the United States, and an alleged bomb plot against RAF Fairford that was stopped by a roadblock, a farmer and the police in the early hours of September 27. The indictment names the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Kataib Hezbollah as the organisations the men are accused of supporting, and it alleges that the plot was directed from a jail cell in New York through coded messages. Iran has denied the allegations, two of the three men are not in American custody, and the charges have not been proven in court. What is certain is that the bombers have left Fairford, the base is under heightened security, and the case has become one of the most serious terrorism prosecutions of the year. The coming weeks will provide the answers.

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