The Iran-backed Iraqi group Kataib Hezbollah, denied on Monday that a man accused of plotting attacks in the United States and Europe was a member of the group.
US authorities on Friday detailed charges against Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, 32, who was identified as a senior figure in Kataib Hezbollah, which the US designates as a terrorist organization.
“The abductee, Mohammaed Baqer al-Saadi does not belong to Kataib Hezbollah,” the group’s security commander Abou Moujahed al-Assaf said in a statement.
But he added that Saadi “will return to his country with his head held high, because he is among the lovers and supporters of the resistance.”
According to US court filings, Saadi and unidentified associates planned, coordinated and claimed responsibility for at least 18 attacks in Europe, and two in Canada, including a non-fatal stabbing of two Jewish men in London, and several arson attacks on synagogues in other countries.
He is most recently alleged to have also plotted attacks in the United States.
He appeared on Friday at a Manhattan court where he was charged with six counts including conspiracy to provide material support to Kataib Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
A senior Iraqi security source told AFP that Saadi was arrested in Türkiye before being transferred to the US.
Kataib Hezbollah is part of the umbrella movement known as the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, which claimed hundreds of attacks against US interests in Iraq and the wider region during the Middle East war.
The attacks have ceased since a ceasefire was announced in April.
The US State Department announced last month that it was offering up to $10 million for information on the group’s leader, Ahmad al-Hamidawi.