Iran-linked Iraqi suspect held in Brooklyn allegedly plotted to kill Ivanka Trump

Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood Al-Saadi, a 32-year-old Iraqi national described as close to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and to Tehran-linked Shia militias, was arrested in Turkey on May 15 and extradited to the United States. The New York Post, citing an Iraqi-source confirmation and a second corroborating source, reported on Friday that Al-Saadi had vowed to assassinate Ivanka Trump, 44, to avenge the death of Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, killed by a US drone strike in Baghdad in January 2020. This follows reporting last week that the United States had taken custody of an Iraqi militia commander accused of orchestrating international terror attacks; the Ivanka plot is among the most specific allegations to surface in the federal indictment.

Al-Saadi allegedly possessed a plan of Ivanka Trump's Florida residence -- the $24 million property she shares with husband Jared Kushner -- and posted a map of the surrounding neighbourhood on X with an Arabic message: "I tell the Americans: look at this image and know that neither your palaces nor the Secret Service will protect you. We are currently in the surveillance and analysis phase. I told you, our revenge is a question of time." Entifadh Qanbar, a former deputy military attache at the Iraqi embassy in Washington, told the Post that after Soleimani's death Al-Saadi told associates, "we must kill Ivanka to burn Trump's house as he burned our house," and that he was known to possess "a plan of Ivanka's house in Florida."

The federal case extends well beyond the Florida plot. The Justice Department, cited by the New York Post, has charged Al-Saadi in connection with 18 attacks or attempted attacks in Europe and the United States. Those include the March arson of a Bank of New York Mellon branch in Amsterdam, an April knife attack on two Jewish victims in London, and a March shooting at the building housing the US consulate in Toronto. He is also alleged to have planned and coordinated attacks targeting Jewish sites, among them a synagogue bombing in Liege, Belgium and an arson at a temple in Rotterdam. Ivanka Trump converted to Orthodox Judaism in 2009 before marrying Kushner.

Qanbar described Al-Saadi as having been raised in Baghdad by his Iraqi mother and sent to Tehran to be trained by the Revolutionary Guards; he treated Soleimani as a father figure after the 2006 death of his own father, Iranian General Ahmad Kazemi. He is alleged to have set up a religious-pilgrimage travel agency that provided cover for foreign travel and contacts with terrorist cells. At the time of his Turkish arrest on May 15 he was carrying an Iraqi service passport -- a document normally reserved for state officials -- and was in transit to Russia. The federal indictment is said to include images of Al-Saadi with Soleimani inside what appears to be a military facility, examining maps and equipment, alongside social-media photos of him in front of the Eiffel Tower, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, and a missile with his hand on his heart.

In an August 2020 post -- months after Soleimani's death -- Al-Saadi wrote, "I will leave social media and turn off all my phones until the American enemy is defeated... victory or martyrdom." The New York Post said the digital silence was brief; by 2025 he was again referring to Soleimani and other Iranian officials killed by the United States as "martyrs." The White House did not respond to the Post's request for comment on the alleged plot, and Al-Saadi's lawyer also did not respond. He remains in solitary confinement at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.