Welcome to Meet the Press Now. I'm Kristen Welker in Washington. We are following breaking news. A man authorities say is a terrorist terrorist commander appearing in federal court this afternoon,

indicted on terrorism charges, and accused of planning three attacks across the United States.

Take a look. These are photos exclusive to NBC News of that suspect, Muhammad al-Saddy.

Authorities say he tried to hire someone to carry out the attacks,

which were planned for New York City, Los Angeles, and Scottsdale, Arizona. That person turned out

to be an undercover member of law enforcement. Authorities say Al-Sadi was part of a group that has

ties to the Iranian-backed terror organization Hezbollah.

According to the criminal complaint unsealed today, Al-Sadi and his associates have planned, coordinated, and claimed responsibility for at least 18 terrorist attacks in Europe

as well as two additional attacks in Canada.

NBC News, national law enforcement and intelligence correspondent Tom Winter joins me now.

Tom, thank you so much for starting us off on this breaking news. So let's talk about who is

Mohamed Al-Sadi and how significant is this apprehension. Well, Kristen, for the last couple of

months we've been trying to figure out, and apparently so is law enforcement. Who is behind

this mysterious

group that's been posting, taking credit for, a number of attacks, a fire bombings, a stabbing,

an incident involving drones at the Israeli embassy in London, H-A-Y-I.

And this man that you're now looking at there, Muhammad al-Sadi, they say is one of the leaders of that group.

And that really it's just a front, if you will, for Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed terror organization.

And so the focus here has been on who's been doing this and how are they doing it?

And one of the things that a number of terror experts have pointed out is that this really

speaks to Iran's memo, basically going out and hiring a number of criminal groups. These are

criminal organizations, gangs that are active in various parts of Europe to go out and conduct

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