Over the weekend, authorities in Cyprus thwarted a terror attack targeting Jews and Israelis planned by the Islamic Republic of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC).
According to media reports, the planned attacks were thwarted by Cypriot intelligence services in collaboration with Israel and the United States.
The Israeli Mossad played a key role in helping Cyprus foil the terrorist attack. According to the Israeli news website Ynet, the attack had been planned against Israelis staying in Limassol.
"Israel praises the thwarting of an Iranian terrorist attack on Cyprus's territory against Israeli targets," Israel Prime Minister Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu's office stated. "Israel acts in a variety of ways everywhere to defend Jews and Israelis and will continue to act to cut off Iranian terror wherever it raises its head, including in Iran, the chief spreader of terror in the world."
The attackers were working in the northern part of the island as a staging area for their operation for several months, according to Cypriot intelligence services.
An unnamed Cypriot official told Phile News website that the busting of the plot demonstrated that the island-state of Cyprus would not allow its own territorial conflict to create a "security hole" through which attacks can be carried out.
In the past few months, Cyprus has closely monitored potential threats from Iran and other Islamist terror groups.
According to Israeli experts, the latest terror attempts from the Islamic Republic of Iran to target Israelis and Jews outside of the Middle East are nothing new.
In 1992 the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was attacked by a car bomb that killed 29 individuals and injured more than 250 others, including Israeli diplomats, children, and citizens.
In 1994, the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires was bombed, killing 87 and injuring 100 individuals. Following investigations by the Israeli and Argentinian governments, officials concluded that the Islamic Republic of Iran's Lebanese Shiite terrorist proxy, Hezbollah, was responsible for carrying out the attacks with help from the IRGC.
In November 2022, Georgian security officials stopped an attempt by Pakistani citizens to murder Israeli citizens in Georgia on orders from the Islamic Republic of Iran. In that same year, Turkish forces prevented an attempt by Islamic Republic agents to kill Israelis in the country's capital of Istanbul, arresting several individuals, following reports that the Israeli Mossad and local counterparts stopped three Iranian agents from attacking Israeli civilians in Istanbul.
Officials from the Islamic Republic have denied planning the attack.
Earlier this year, Israel's National Security Council warned that Cyprus and Greece are places where Tehran is likely to target Jews and Israelis, given how popular they are for Israeli tourists and the sizable ex-pat population. Despite Israel's success working with foreign intelligence services to prevent attacks against Israelis and Jews, Israeli officials have called on citizens and tourists to cease traveling to places like Turkey and to be cautious.
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