After the announcement today about the thwarting of the attack in Cyprus, new details about the attempted attack are now being revealed. The Cypriot security forces, in cooperation with the Mossad, uncovered and thwarted an attempt by Iranian terrorist elements to assassinate Israeli citizens living on the island about a month ago. In order to promote the assassination attempt, a squad of Iranian agents located in Cyprus was activated, who were involved in gathering intelligence on the ground about the targets of the attack.
The two members of the squad were arrested at the beginning of November 2023, and since then they have been under investigation, and a legal proceeding is being conducted against them. According to the publications in Cyprus, they were even issued a deportation order. During the investigation of the terrorists, it became clear that this squad participated, in intelligence gathering on other Western elements outside of Cyprus as well. The investigation to thwart these axes continues.
During the countermeasures activity and the investigation of the members of the infrastructure, a lot of information emerged about the Iranian planning, the targets of the attack, and the methods of operation: the person who activated the squad and led the intention of the attack is an Iranian citizen named Mohammad Raza, who uses a large number of fake passports and different identities.
Raza is a known active operative of Iranian terrorist organizations, and in the past he was involved, among other things, in an attempted attack against an Israeli citizen in Georgia in November 2022. The exposure of the attack shows the Iranian failure to hide their involvement. This attempted attack comes against the background of a significant increase since the events of October 7 in Iranian efforts to promote terrorist attacks against the State of Israel, its assets and its citizens.
The Mossad stated: "The Mossad is widely deployed around the world, and works shoulder to shoulder with its partners in the intelligence and security community in many countries, and continues to monitor attempts by the Iranians and other hostile elements directed by Iran to carry out terrorist activities. This is another successful foiling with the security and enforcement services in Cyprus in the last year. It will be mentioned that, on June 23, an attempted terrorist attack against Jewish targets on the island was foiled, which was also targeted by Iran.