Coded prison calls allegedly directed attack on British airbase housing US bombers

Last updated: November 11, 2026 | 19:07

This photograph of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al Saadi (left), with Qasem Soleimani, was featured on Al Saadi's Snapchat account, according to a federal criminal complaint. Soleimani was the Iranian commander who was killed in January 2020 by a US drone strike ordered by President Donald Trump at Baghdad International Airport. CNN/FBI

Dubai: An alleged Iranian-linked militant commander used coded telephone calls from a New York federal prison to help direct a terrorist plot against a British airbase housing American B-1 bombers, according to a US indictment detailed by CNN.

The suspect, Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al Saadi, a dual Iranian-Iraqi citizen associated with the Iran-backed Kataib Hezbollah militia, allegedly coordinated the operation while detained at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

The intended target was RAF Fairford in southwestern England, a strategic…