Cyprus foils alleged Iranian plot to kill Israelis, in joint operation with Mossad

NICOSIA, Cyprus — Cyprus has disrupted an alleged Iranian plot to target Israeli businessmen with the arrest of two Iranian asylum-seekers who were in contact with another Iranian associated with the Revolutionary Guard, a Cypriot official says.

The official tells the Associated Press the two Iranian men have been in police custody since November 3 and procedures are underway to deport them.

The official, who speaks on condition of anonymity because he’s not allowed to speak publicly about national security matters, says the suspects’ detention was the culmination of a joint operation with Israel’s Mossad security service.

Cypriot security services had been surveilling the two Iranian men for several weeks and detained them just before what authorities believe would have been the arrival of a squad to carry out killings, the official says. The targeted individuals were primarily Israeli businessmen, the official says.

Cypriot authorities say the suspects’ Iranian handler moved in and out of Cyprus through the ethnically divided island nation’s breakaway Turkish Cypriot north and would cross a UN-controlled buffer zone into the internationally recognized south to establish contact with the two. His identity and whereabouts were not revealed but the official said he worked for Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.