Alexei Saab Allegedly Was Trained by Hizballah’s External
Terrorist Operations Component in Bomb-Making and Conducted
Intelligence-Gathering in New York City and Washington, D.C., and Elsewhere in
Support of Hizballah’s Attack-Planning Efforts
Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States Attorney for the
Southern District of New York, John C. Demers, the Assistant Attorney General
for National Security, William F. Sweeney Jr., the Assistant Director-in-Charge
of the New York Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”), and
James P. O’Neill, the Commissioner of the Police Department for the City of New
York (“NYPD”), announced that ALEXEI SAAB, a/k/a “Ali Hassan Saab,” a/k/a “Alex
Saab,” a/k/a “Rachid,” was charged today in a nine-count Indictment for
offenses related to his support for Hizballah and separate marriage-fraud offenses. SAAB was arrested July 9, 2019, in New York,
New York, pursuant to a criminal complaint, and remains detained. The case is assigned to U.S. District Judge
Paul G. Gardephe.
Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said: “As a member of the Hizballah component that
coordinates external terrorist attack planning, Alexei Saab allegedly used his
training to scout possible targets throughout the U.S. Even though Saab was a naturalized American
citizen, his true allegiance was to Hizballah, the terrorist organization
responsible for decades of terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds,
including U.S. citizens and military personnel.
Thankfully, Saab is now in federal custody, and faces significant prison
time for his alleged crimes.”
Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said: “According to the allegations, while living
in the United States, Saab served as an operative of Hizballah and conducted
surveillance of possible target locations in order to help the foreign
terrorist organization prepare for potential future attacks against the United
States. Such covert activities conducted
on U.S. soil are a clear threat to our national security and I applaud the
agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this investigation
and prosecution.”
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William F. Sweeney Jr.
said: “As alleged, Saab began his
training with Hizballah operatives overseas and, while living in the U.S.,
surveilled multiple locations in major cities.
Today’s announcement highlights the persistent efforts of a
sophisticated international terrorist organization to scout targets at home and
abroad, identifying vulnerabilities, and gathering essential details useful for
a future attack. In the city that never
sleeps, neither do the FBI agents, detectives, and analysts who work on the
JTTF to protect it, and because of their work, Saab’s future surveillances will
be limited to a cell. We cannot do this
work alone. I would like to thank the
countless private security professionals who protect many of these sites,
remind them to remain vigilant in order to make the enemy’s job more difficult,
and I would ask the general public to continue to report suspicious activity to
law enforcement like you have so many times in the past.”
NYPD Commissioner James P. O’Neill said: “Saab operated in the streets of New York as
a covert operative for Hizballah, gathering intelligence and sizing up targets
for potential attacks on US soil. This
case brings us another important piece of the puzzle in our long term
investigations into the terrorist groups targeting New York City. I commend the teamwork of the NYPD
detectives, FBI agents and all the partner agencies in the Joint Terrorism Task
Force”.
According to the Indictment and Complaint unsealed today in
Manhattan federal court:[1]
Hizballah is a Lebanon-based Shia Islamic organization with
political, social, and terrorist components.
Hizballah was founded in the 1980s with support from Iran after the 1982
Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and its mission includes establishing a
fundamentalist Islamic state in Lebanon.
Since Hizballah’s formation, the organization has been responsible for
numerous terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds, including United States citizens
and military personnel. In 1997, the
U.S. Department of State designated Hizballah a Foreign Terrorist Organization,
pursuant to Section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act, and it remains
so designated today. In 2001, pursuant
to Executive Order 13224, the U.S. Department of Treasury designated Hizballah
a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
In 2010, State Department officials described Hizballah as the most
technically capable terrorist group in the world, and a continued security
threat to the United States.
The Islamic Jihad Organization (“IJO”), which is also known
as the External Security Organization and “910,” is a component of Hizballah
responsible for the planning and coordination of intelligence,
counterintelligence, and terrorist activities on behalf of Hizballah outside of
Lebanon. In July 2012, an IJO operative
detonated explosives on a bus transporting Israeli tourists in the vicinity of
an airport in Burgas, Bulgaria, which killed six people and injured 32 others. Law enforcement authorities have disrupted
several other IJO attack-planning operations around the world, including the
arrest of an IJO operative surveilling Israeli targets in Cyprus in 2012, the
seizure of bomb-making precursor chemicals in Thailand in 2012, and a seizure
of similar chemicals in May 2015 in connection with the arrest of another IJO
operative. In June 2017, two IJO
operatives were arrested in the United States and charged with
terrorism-related offenses in the Southern District of New York. In May 2019, a jury convicted one of those
two IJO operatives on all counts.
SAAB joined Hizballah in 1996. SAAB’s first Hizballah operation occurred in
Lebanon, where he was tasked with observing and reporting on the movements of
Israeli and Southern Lebanese Army soldiers in Yaroun, Lebanon. Among other things, SAAB reported on patrol
schedules and formations, procedures at security checkpoints, and the vehicles
used by soldiers.
In approximately 1999, SAAB attended his first Hizballah
training. The training focused on the use
of firearms, and SAAB handled and fired an AK-47, an M16 rifle, and a pistol,
and threw grenades. In 2000, SAAB
transitioned to membership in Hizballah’s unit responsible for external
operations, the IJO, and he then received extensive training in IJO tradecraft,
weapons, and military tactics, including how to construct and detonate bombs
and other explosive devices. In 2004 and
2005, Saab attended explosives training in Lebanon during which he received
detailed instruction in, among other things, triggering mechanisms, explosive
substances, detonators, and the assembly of circuits.
In 2000, SAAB lawfully entered the United States using a
Lebanese passport. In 2005, SAAB applied
for naturalized citizenship and falsely affirmed, under penalty of perjury,
that he had never been “a member of or in any way associated with . . . a
terrorist organization.” In August 2008,
SAAB became a naturalized U.S. citizen.
While living in the United States, SAAB remained an IJO
operative, continued to receive military training in Lebanon, and conducted
numerous operations for the IJO. For
example, SAAB surveilled dozens of locations in New York City – including the
United Nations headquarters, the Statue of Liberty, Rockefeller Center, Times
Square, the Empire State Building, and local airports, tunnels, and bridges –
and provided detailed information on these locations, including photographs, to
the IJO. In particular, SAAB focused on
the structural weaknesses of locations he surveilled in order to determine how
a future attack could cause the most destruction. SAAB’s reporting to the IJO included the
materials used to construct a particular target, how close in proximity one
could get to a target, and site weaknesses or “soft spots” that the IJO could
exploit if it attacked a target in the future.
SAAB conducted similar intelligence gathering in a variety of large
American cities, including Washington, D.C.
The FBI recovered photographs from SAAB’s electronic devices reflecting
his surveillance activities, including photographs of New York City landmarks.
In addition to his attack-planning activities in the United
States, SAAB conducted operations abroad.
For example, SAAB attempted to murder a man he later understood to be a
suspected Israeli spy. SAAB pointed a
firearm at the individual at close range and pulled the trigger twice, but the
firearm did not fire. SAAB also
conducted intelligence-gathering for Hizballah in Istanbul, Turkey.
Finally, unrelated to his IJO activities, in July 2012, SAAB
married another individual (“CC-1”) so that CC-1 could apply for naturalized
citizenship in the United States based on their marriage. On March 13, 2015, SAAB and CC-1 jointly
filed a petition seeking to obtain naturalized citizenship for CC-1. In doing so, SAAB and CC-1 falsely claimed
under penalty of perjury that their marriage was “not for the purpose of
procuring an immigration benefit.”
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