US prosecutors have accused an alleged Iraqi militant linked to Iran-backed groups of plotting attacks against American and Jewish targets in Europe and North America, with sources telling the New York Post that he had also discussed targeting Ivanka Trump. According to the report, 32-year-old Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi was arrested in Turkey on May 15 and extradited to the United States, where he now faces charges linked to a series of attacks and alleged terror plots across Europe and North America.
US Department of Justice documents accuse Al-Saadi of involvement in 18 attacks and attempted attacks, including incidents targeting American and Jewish sites. The charges include allegations connected to the firebombing of a Bank of New York Mellon office in Amsterdam, the stabbing of two Jewish victims in London, a shooting at the US consulate building in Toronto and attacks on synagogues in Liège and Rotterdam.
The New York Post reported, citing unnamed sources, that Al-Saadi had pledged to target Ivanka Trump in retaliation for the 2020 US drone strike that killed Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad.
“After Qasem was killed, he [Al-Saadi] went around telling people ‘we need to kill Ivanka to burn down the house of Trump the way he burned down our house,’” Entifadh Qanbar, a former deputy military attaché at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, told the newspaper.
Qanbar also claimed Al-Saadi possessed a map showing the Florida neighbourhood where Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, own a home. A second unnamed source cited by the paper reportedly confirmed the alleged plot.
According to the report, Al-Saadi posted an image online showing the area around the couple’s property alongside a message in Arabic threatening Americans and saying: “We are currently in the stage of surveillance and analysis. I told you, our revenge is a matter of time.”
US prosecutors allege Al-Saadi had links to both Kata’ib Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Elizabeth Tsurkov, a senior fellow at the New Lines Institute who was abducted in Baghdad in 2023 and later released, told the New York Post that Al-Saadi had maintained close ties with senior Iranian military figures following Soleimani’s death.
According to court documents cited in the report, investigators said Al-Saadi frequently posted photographs on social media appearing to show him alongside armed groups, missiles and senior Iranian commanders. Federal filings also include images allegedly showing him consulting with Soleimani at what appeared to be a military facility.
In one social media post from 2020 cited in court papers, Al-Saadi wrote: “I will leave social media and turn off all my phones until the American enemy is defeated … victory or martyrdom.” Prosecutors said he later continued posting threats online, including alleged messages sent directly to potential victims featuring images of a silenced handgun.
