The sickly spree would have included the assassination of exiled Iranian dissident Masih Alinejad, as well as the murder of scores of innocent civilians in Los Angeles, Arizona, New York City and elsewhere, court documents say.
Aaron Y. Zelin, an expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, warned the foiled plot is evidence that America’s now three-month-old conflict with Iran has entered a dangerous new phase.
“They’ve expanded their scope into actual Western countries now beyond just the war zone,” Zelin explained.
Prosecutors alleged al-Saadi’s job, prior to his arrest, was to recruit suicide bombers willing to wreak mayhem in the West and coordinate attacks from afar.
Meanwhile, his lawyer has called him “a political prisoner,” but al-Saadi’s charging documents, unsealed May 15 in U.S. court, include transcripts of phone calls in which he allegedly discussed the firebombing of a Belgian synagogue as well as the destruction of a Bank of America outpost in Paris.