BOSTON, Dec 16 (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 ( ADI ), 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 dual Switzerland-Iran citizen, 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 White House later said it was facilitated by the Islamic

Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of hardline

Iran-backed militant groups.

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 ( ADI ) in a statement confirmed he worked for the

company.

Analog Devices ( ADI ) 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.)