Two arrested over deadly Iran-linked drone strike on US troops in Jordan
PHOTO CAPTION: U.S. President Joe Biden, first lady Jill Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Air Force General Charles Q. Brown attend the dignified transfer of the remains of Army Reserve Sergeants William Rivers, Kennedy Sanders and Breonna Moffett, three U.S. service members who were killed in Jordan during a drone attack carried out by Iran-backed militants, at Dover Air Force Base in Dover, Delaware, U.S., February 2, 2024. REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
By Nate Raymond
BOSTON (Reuters) -U.S. prosecutors on Monday charged two men with illegally exporting sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a drone attack carried out by Iran-backed militants in Jordan in January that killed three U.S. service members and injured 47 others.
Federal prosecutors in Boston charged Mohammad Abedini, the co-founder of an Iranian-based company, and Mahdi Sadeghi, an employee of Massachusetts-based semiconductor manufacturer Analog Devices, with conspiring to violate U.S. export laws.
Prosecutors also charged Abedini, also known as Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, with providing material support to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that resulted in death. The U.S. designates the Revolutionary Guards a foreign terrorist organization.
Abedini, a resident of both Switzerland and Iran, was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the U.S. government, which will seek his extradition. Sadeghi, an Iranian-born naturalized U.S. citizen living in Natick, Massachusetts, was also arrested.
"We often cite hypothetical risk when we talk about the dangers of American technologies getting into dangerous hands," U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy in Massachusetts said. "Unfortunately, in this situation, we are not speculating."
The Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. outpost in Jordan called Tower 22, near the Syrian border, was first deadly strike against U.S. forces since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October 2023.
The three Army Reserve soldiers killed in the attack were all from Georgia. They were Sergeant William Jerome Rivers; Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders; and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett.
The White House later said the attack was facilitated by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of hardline Iran-backed militant groups. Iran has denied involvement in the attack.
At a press conference in Boston, Levy said the FBI had been able to trace sophisticated navigation equipment used in the drone to Abedini's Iranian company, SDRA, which manufactured the navigation system.
Levy said Abedini had used a company in Switzerland as a front to procure American technologies from Sadeghi's employer including accelerometers and gyroscopes that were then sent to Iran.
During a brief court hearing, Sadeghi was ordered detained pending a further hearing after a prosecutor called him a flight risk. His court-appointed lawyer did not respond to request for comment. A lawyer for Abedini could not be identified.
Court papers do not identify Sadeghi's employer by name, but Analog Devices in a statement confirmed he worked for the company.
Analog Devices said it was cooperating with law enforcement and was "committed to preventing unauthorized access to and misuse of our products and technology."
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston, Editing by Franklin Paul, David Gregorio and Lincoln Feast)
