RAF Fairford Plot: US Charges Three Iran-Backed Men

The U.S. Department of Justice has charged three men it describes as operatives of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah over a September plot to send fuel-laden vans into RAF Fairford, the English base from which U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer bombers had been flying during the war with Iran. An eight-count superseding indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court on November 10 names Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a 32-year-old dual Iraqi and Iranian national jailed in New York since May, alongside the Iranian Mohsen Mohajeri, 48, and the Iraqi Mohammad Ali al-Hassani, 35, both said to have been in Iran at the time. The case moves the Fairford plot from a British policing matter to a U.S. terrorism prosecution alleging that it was run on behalf of the Revolutionary Guard. Attorney General Todd Blanche stated: “Anyone who plans a terrorist plot on a military base housing American servicemembers will be prosecuted by the United States.”

According to the indictment, al-Hassani paid an associate on August 22 to carry out surveillance of the base perimeter, before tasking and paying several people in September to obtain vans and barrels of fuel, research chemical accelerants and buy metal objects that could serve as shrapnel. The vans were fitted with custom decals so that they would appear to belong to a fuel delivery firm and a swimming pool supply business. Prosecutors allege that al-Saadi coordinated from his U.S. jail cell with the other two men through coded messages relayed by his mother and sister in Iraq, and on September 24 told relatives to give al-Hassani money “so we can do it.” On September 26 al-Hassani directed three vans towards the base, with at least two of them stopped at a security roadblock near the perimeter before British authorities recovered all three and arrested their occupants in the early hours of September 27.

The Fairford operation was far from the first attributed to the network, with the Justice Department describing Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, which claimed 18 arson, explosives and knife attacks in Europe in the spring of 2026, seven of them in the United Kingdom and many against Jewish targets, as a front for Kataib Hezbollah. The new charges include conspiracy to bomb a place of public use, which carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald stated: “The threat presented by Iran and Iran-backed terrorist groups to America and our allies is not hypothetical.” Iran has denied any role in the incident and made no immediate comment on the indictment, while Iranian officials have separately threatened U.S. bases in Europe if they are used for attacks on Iran.

The plot carried a significant operational cost for the U.S. Air Force even though no van reached the flightline, with all 12 B-1B Lancers deployed at RAF Fairford leaving the base on October 4 and the service saying only that they had returned to their home stations. Fairford is the U.S. Air Force’s designated forward operating location for heavy bombers in Europe, and its runway had allowed the B-1B, which carries up to 34,000 kilograms of ordnance in its three internal weapons bays, to fly long range missions against Iran without relying on Gulf bases. Two British men charged in October under the National Security Act, one with assisting a foreign intelligence service and the other with entering a prohibited place for a purpose prejudicial to the United Kingdom, are being prosecuted separately in Britain.