Iraqi Hezbollah Commander on Trial in New York

By Mihailo S. Zekic • May 18, 2026

The United States unsealed a criminal complaint Friday against Mohammed Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, a senior commander of the Iraqi terror group Kata’ib Hezbollah. Saadi was present in a Manhattan courtroom for the start of his trial.

Saadi, who was arrested in Turkey and extradited to the United States, was a confidant of the late irgc Gen. Qassem Suleimani, whom U.S. forces killed in 2020.
He was indicted by the U.S. for allegedly planning a terror attack against a New York synagogue. The criminal complaint accuses Saadi of masterminding terror attacks against European Jews over the past several months. The group that claimed responsibility for these attacks is Ashab al-Yamin; the U.S. alleges this is a front for Kata’ib Hezbollah.

Kata’ib Hezbollah, like its larger Lebanese counterpart, is a proxy of Iran. It is one of the most important terror groups affiliated with the Popular Mobilization Forces, a conglomerate of Iraqi militias that is officially part of the Iraqi military but is controlled by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

While Kata’ib Hezbollah is powerful within Iraq and has regularly skirmished with U.S. troops, to this point it hasn’t been known to perpetrate attacks in the West. But if the charges against Saadi are true, this demonstrates that, contrary to what isolationists may argue, Iran is a direct danger to the U.S. homeland and the West. In this case, so are its Iraqi militias.

This also demonstrates just how much control Iran has over Iraq.

Kata’ib Hezbollah has semi-official status within Iraq’s military. The Iraqi government, which is heavily supported by the U.S., granted this status to try to tame it. Yet the group can launch terror attacks against Iraq’s American sponsor, and the government is powerless to stop it—or is sympathetic.

In the 1990s, when Iraq was led by Iran’s enemy Saddam Hussein, Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry forecast that Iraq would fall to Iran. He maintained that forecast when Hussein’s regime fell to the U.S. All these decades later, Mr. Flurry’s words have been vindicated.