Could this one man have been behind terrorist attacks on Jewish communities across Europe?

On Monday, a slightly dishevelled Iraqi man, shackled and dressed in beige prison overalls, was ushered into a Manhattan courtroom. Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, 32, pleaded not guilty to a series of terrorism-related offences, then gestured toward the judge and prosecutors. “I’m a prisoner of war. I’m not a threat,” he told them. “Children and women are being killed by your rockets.” Then, al-Saadi, who faces life behind bars, was led away. The brief hearing was the latest chapter in an extraordinary story that appears far from over. It involves: two powers at war; one of the most high-profile terrorist campaigns in Europe and the UK for many years; a new form of warfare to which western security services have yet to find an answer; teenage petty criminals caught up in geopolitics; Islamist militia in Iraq; and, inevitably for 2026, the disruptive power of social media. The man who brought it all together, investigators say, was al-Saadi. The story begins a week after the joint US-Israeli offensive that started the war with Iran when, in the dead of night, someone posted a series of messages on Telegram and Snapchat that appeared to send secret instructions to terrorist networks in Europe. Calling on the “Shadow Soldiers”, the messages gave “permission to all silent cells for work” and included a code of three letters and nine numbers apparently indicating specific teams or individuals. …