An Iranian American and a Swiss Iranian have been arrested for allegedly exporting sensitive US technology to Iran for use in attack drones.

An Iranian-American citizen and a Swiss Iranian have been arrested and charged by United States authorities with allegedly exporting sensitive technology to Iran that was used in a deadly drone attack on American forces based in Jordan.

Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed fighters, was alleged to have carried out the drone attack that killed three US soldiers and wounded 47 others at a US military outpost in Jordan, near the Syrian border, in January.

Federal prosecutors in Boston on Monday charged 38-year-old Mohammad Abedininajafabadi, who is known as Mohammad Abedini, the co-founder of an Iranian-based company, and Mahdi Sadeghi, 42, an employee of Massachusetts-based semiconductor manufacturer Analog Devices, with conspiring to violate US export laws.

Abedini, a dual citizen of Switzerland and Iran, was arrested in Milan, Italy, at the request of the US government, which will seek his extradition. Sadeghi, an Iranian-born naturalised US citizen, who lives in Natick, Massachusetts, was also arrested.

“Today, working with our partners here and abroad, we have charged and arrested two men who conspired to evade US sanctions and supply the Iranian government with the type of drone navigation technology used in that attack,” US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said in a statement.

Joshua Levy, the top federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, said the FBI had traced sophisticated navigation equipment used in the drone to Abedini’s Iranian company, SDRA, which manufactured the navigation system.

Abedini, Levy said, had used a company in Switzerland as a front to procure US technologies from Sadeghi’s employer, including accelerometers and gyroscopes that were then sent to Iran.

On multiple occasions since 2016, Sadeghi had helped Abedini procure US export-controlled electric components, the US Justice Department said in a statement.

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 requests 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 unauthorised access to and misuse of our products and technology”.

The US Justice Department said the prosecution of the two men was coordinated through the US government’s Disruptive Technology Strike Force, an interagency force focused on “illicit actors” and protecting supply chains in order to prevent sensitive technology from being acquired by “hostile nation states”.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies