Overview

• An Azerbaijani national with alleged IRGC links was arrested in Limassol on June 21 and ordered held for eight days as inquiries continue into his suspected plot against RAF Akrotiri.
• Cypriot counter-terrorism officials acted on foreign intelligence indicating the man had been surveilling RAF Akrotiri and Andreas Papandreou air base since mid-April.
• Cyprus’s role as a key transit hub for evacuees from Israel has heightened its strategic importance amid the Israel-Iran hostilities that erupted on June 13.
• The arrest has intensified scrutiny of security at British RAF installations following a recent breach at RAF Brize Norton.
• UK ministers are now considering proscribing Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terror organisation in response to recent plots.