The terrorist group’s commanders were discussing targeting Ivanka Trump, President Donald Trump’s eldest daughter, as part of a series of attacks, three people familiar with the matter said.
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Commander Mohammad Al Saadi was indicted on Thursday on eight charges for allegedly supporting nearly 20 attacks (and attempted attacks) across Europe, Canada and the United States.
Al-Saadi, an Iraqi national, was extradited to New York this month to stand trial on charges including a plot to target a New York City synagogue. He was also charged with ordering attacks on American bank branches and Jews in several European cities.
The New York Post first reported on the alleged threat against Ivanka Trump. Trump was a senior White House adviser during his father’s first term in office, but was not involved in his second term. She is married to Jared Kushner, who also served as a senior White House adviser during the first Trump administration.
According to court documents, al-Saadi is the commander of Kataib Hezbollah, a US-designated foreign terrorist organization operating in Iraq. The group is accused of having ties to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which the United States has designated as a foreign terrorist organization.
Three sources said Al-Saadi had discussed targeting Ivanka Trump in Florida in an additional attack. The Justice Department did not mention these plans in al-Saadi’s indictment or in news releases on the matter.
Neither the White House nor the Secret Service immediately responded to requests for comment on the alleged plot. The FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.
“As alleged in this indictment, al-Saadi is directly involved in terrorist operations and military decisions to attack U.S. and Israeli interests around the world, and conspires with others to plan deadly attacks on U.S. soil,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a news release Thursday.
Blanche added that the Justice Department “looks forward to vigorously prosecuting him in U.S. courts under U.S. law.”
The Justice Department alleges that al-Saadi has been “furthering the terrorist objectives” of Kataib Hezbollah and the Revolutionary Guards since at least “circa 2017.”
“Al-Saadi worked closely with leaders of both terrorist organizations and allegedly directed other organizations to retaliate by killing U.S. citizens and U.S. political and military leaders after U.S. airstrikes killed some of them,” the Justice Department said in a statement Thursday.
