Two men, including a dual Iranian-American citizen, have been arrested on charges of exporting sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a drone attack in Jordan that killed three U.S. troops and injured dozens of other service members earlier this year, the Justice Department said. said Monday.
The men, identified as Mahdi Mohammad Sadeghi and Mohammad Abedininazafabadi, are charged with export control violations in a criminal case in federal court in Massachusetts.
U.S. officials blamed the January attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed militias that includes Kataib Hezbollah.
Three Georgia soldiers—Sgt. William Jerome Rivers of Carrollton, Sgt. Breonna Moffett of Savannah and Sgt. Kennedy Sanders of Waycross – was killed in a Jan. 28 drone attack on a U.S. outpost called Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan.
In the attack, the unilateral attack drone may have been mistaken for a US drone that was expected to return to the logistics base at the same time and was not shot down.
Instead, it crashed into the living quarters, killing three soldiers and injuring more than 40.
Tower 22 housed approximately 350 US military personnel. It is strategically located between Jordan and Syria, just 10 kilometers (6 miles) from the Iraqi border, and in the months since Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel and Israel’s lackluster response to Gaza, Iranian-backed militias have stepped up their attacks. At US military locations in the region.
After the attack, the US launched a major counterstrike against 85 sites in Iraq and Syria used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and Iranian-backed militias and strengthened Tower 22’s security.
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