When on Friday a 32-year-old Iraqi was brought before a court in New York to be charged with planning to attack Jewish community sites in the US, a curtain was suddenly lifted on a corner of a shadowy world.
The detention of Mohammed Saad Baqer al-Saadi in Turkey last week revealed rare details of Iran’s efforts to use terrorism to sow discord among communities in Europe, the UK and the US – but also the outlines of an uncertain and threatening future.
Al-Saadi is a senior commander of the Baghdad-based Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful militia with close links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). He is accused of being connected to 18 separate attacks including firebombings of synagogues and community centres in Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK. Among them also is the stabbing in Golders Green, which left two Jewish men badly injured last month.
