ATHENS, December 10 Cypriot police arrested two Iranians, allegedly preparing a terrorist attack against citizens of Jewish origin living in Cyprus, the Cypriot edition of the Greek newspaper Kathimerini reported.
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Cypriot intelligence services, in partnership with the Israeli foreign intelligence service Mossad, uncovered an Iranian terrorist network on the island that was allegedly planning attacks on Israeli and Jewish targets.
“Last month (November), Cypriot police arrested two Iranians as they were allegedly associated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and were targeting Jewish citizens living in Cyprus. The two Iranians are in custody while there is a warrant for their deportation from the country,” Kathimerini reported.
«This is the third such incident in the last two years, which puts Cyprus at the forefront of terrorist attacks,» the newspaper writes.
According to her, the first was two years ago, the second — in June last year.
“The possibility of a terrorist attack was successfully prevented this time thanks to the close cooperation of the Cypriot intelligence services with their Western colleagues, but this incident once again raises the discussion about the “hole” in the security issue due to the occupied territories,” writes Kathimerini, noting that in the northern part of Cyprus , not controlled by the Republic of Cyprus, there are a large number of Israeli citizens.
As for the Iranians who were arrested, they were in the early stages of gathering intelligence on their targets. “They arrived in the free territories through the occupied ones and were recognized as political refugees. They did not act together, but they had the same leader. The Cypriot intelligence services closely monitored the movements of the two Iranians over the past two months and were able to prevent possible terrorist attacks in time.” , writes the newspaper.
She also reports that the leader of the two Iranians is Mohammad Reza Ebadi Arablu, who is “connected with a foiled terrorist attack in Georgia in November, the target of which was the Jewish businessman Itzik Moshe, who lived in Tbilisi.”