Cyprus has effectively disrupted an Iranian terror plot directed towards Jewish and Israeli individuals, according to Sunday reports by the Cypriot media.
Speculation links the averted assault to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, an arm of the Iranian military deemed a terrorist organisation by several nations, including the United States.
Earlier in the year, warnings from Israel’s National Security Council singled out Cyprus and Greece as probable areas for Iranian attacks on Jews and Israelis. Both countries attract a significant number of Israeli tourists and boast considerable expatriate communities.
According to the Phile News website, Cypriot intelligence, in collaboration with foreign agencies, alleged to be Israeli and American, successfully intercepted the planned attack.
The alleged attackers purportedly utilised the northern section of the island as a launching pad for the prospective assault. Cypriot intelligence reportedly tracked the cell for several months.
A source, who requested anonymity, stated that the disruption of the plot underlines Cyprus’s refusal to let its territorial disputes engender a “security loophole” for launching attacks.
Neither confirmation nor denial of these reports has come from Israeli officials.
Cyprus has been a split nation since 1974, due to a Turkish military invasion in response to a coup intent on uniting Cyprus with Greece. The governance of the northern third of the island is recognised solely by Turkey.
In October 2021, Israel announced the thwarting of an Iranian scheme against Israeli entrepreneurs in Cyprus. Allegedly, the would-be assassin was an Azerbaijani national who travelled to Cyprus from Russia with a Russian passport.
The man reportedly arrived in Larnaca, located in Cyprus’s southern region, and travelled north to the Turkish-governed city of Paralimni, where he hired a room and two vehicles. Multiple crossings of the Turkish-Cypriot border on a bicycle were reported.
Over the past year, Iranian plots targeting Israelis have been successfully countered in several other nations.
In November, Georgian authorities intercepted an attempt by a Pakistani national to assassinate an Israeli on the orders of an Iranian operative.
Additionally, Turkish authorities arrested three men in July, halting a plot by Iranian agents to murder Israelis in Istanbul. The report emerged a month after the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad and local agencies deterred three attempted Iranian attacks on Israeli civilians in Istanbul. Iran rejected these claims.
In the same month, Thai security forces reportedly stymied an Iranian agent’s attempts to establish a terrorist cell and potentially launch attacks against Israelis in the country.
Iran and Israel have been entwined in a shadowy conflict spanning the Middle East and beyond for decades.
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