An alleged senior commander of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia pleaded not guilty Monday to federal terrorism charges in Manhattan, telling a judge through an Arabic interpreter that he is not a criminal and that “we are in a war situation.”

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, an Iraqi national accused of coordinating roughly 20 attacks against American, Israeli and Jewish targets across Europe and Canada, as well as plotting attacks inside the United States including against a Manhattan synagogue, appeared before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon. His defense attorney, Andrew Dalack, entered the not guilty plea to eight counts that include conspiracy to provide material support to Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iran-backed militia designated by the United States as a foreign terrorist organization.

“I am not guilty, and we are in a war situation,” Al-Saadi said as the hearing got underway. “Children are being killed by your rockets,” he added, gesturing toward the bench and the prosecutors’ table.

Al-Saadi did not specify any particular incident. A February 28 strike on a girls’ school in Iran killed more than 175 children and teachers, according to Iranian officials. An initial internal U.S. military investigation found American forces were likely responsible. The Pentagon has not acknowledged any preliminary findings, with a spokesperson saying Monday only that the investigation remains ongoing.

McMahon raised her voice and ordered Al-Saadi to sit. Two U.S. marshals seated behind him approached the defense table, and he took his seat as they arrived.

Federal prosecutors with the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s Office allege that Al-Saadi is a high-level Kata’ib Hezbollah commander operating under the direction of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. According to the criminal complaint, he helped plan approximately 18 attacks across Europe in recent months, not all of which were carried out, and in March and April plotted attacks on U.S. soil, including against a shul in Manhattan and Jewish institutions in Los Angeles and Scottsdale, Arizona.

The Europe attacks attributed in part to Al-Saadi include a March shul bombing in Liège, Belgium; arson attacks targeting Jewish institutions in Rotterdam and London; explosives attacks on financial targets, including a Bank of New York Mellon branch in Amsterdam and a Bank of America branch in Paris; and the stabbing of two Jewish men, one of them American, in London on April 29. Prosecutors say the attacks were publicly claimed by a previously little-known group called Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiya, or HAYI, which the complaint identifies as a front for Kata’ib Hezbollah operations directed by the IRGC’s Quds Force.

According to the complaint, Al-Saadi communicated with an undercover law enforcement officer posing as a member of a Mexican cartel and shared maps and photographs of the Manhattan shul along with the targeted Jewish institutions in California and Arizona. He allegedly agreed to pay thousands of dollars in cryptocurrency to carry out the attacks. On an April 1 call, prosecutors say Al-Saadi was recorded saying, “war will not end,” and writing that “either they will eradicate us or we will eradicate them.”

Al-Saadi was apprehended in Turkey last month and transferred to U.S. custody. He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn. Dalack, his attorney, has previously argued that his client should be treated as a prisoner of war, citing what he described as a “political prosecution” tied to Al-Saadi’s alleged relationship with Qassem Soleimani, the Quds Force commander killed in a 2020 U.S. drone strike.

The arrest and charges marked the most significant disclosure to date of intelligence tying HAYI directly to the IRGC, with the complaint including photographs of Al-Saadi meeting in person with IRGC leaders. Kata’ib Hezbollah is the same group that abducted and held Russian-Israeli Princeton University researcher Elizabeth Tsurkov for more than two years before her release in September 2025.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at the time of Al-Saadi’s arrest that he had been “targeting the heart of our Jewish community” and that, in her 18 years in government, she had “not seen a threat environment quite like this one.” The Community Security Initiative, which coordinates security for the New York Jewish community, said in a bulletin to community leaders that it had been in contact with the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force about the plot since April.

He faces a potential life sentence if convicted on the most serious counts.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)