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The leader of the powerful Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon threatened the Republic of Cyprus for the first time this month, underscoring the risks of the Middle East crisis spreading beyond the region. The threat against Cyprus is also an indirect threat against NATO member Greece, which has close ties with Israel.
"The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance (Hezbollah) will deal with it as part of the war," Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's secretary-general, declared in a June 19 speech.
Hezbollah has a vast arsenal of drones, anti-ship, ballistic, and cruise missiles that makes it capable of following through on Nasrallah's threat against the Eastern Mediterranean island.
"Hezbollah is attempting to use all possible means to cause fear in Israel and its partners, in this case, the Republic of Cyprus," George Tzogopoulos, a senior fellow at the Centre International de Formation Européenne, a French policy research institute, told Business Insider.
"I would consider Hezbollah's tactics as psychological warfare," Tzogopoulos said. "Although the Republic of Cyprus and Israel have enjoyed strategic cooperation for years, the current timing is crucial. That is perhaps why threats were made public a few days ago."
Cyprus is a divided island. The republic, which Nasrallah threatened, in the south is a member of the European Union. Aside from Turkey, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the north is internationally unrecognized. These sides are split by a UN-patrolled buffer zone. The United Kingdom also has exclusive control over two military bases on the island's south, Akrotiri and Dhekelia, which are officially known as Sovereign Base Areas.
The EU predictably denounced Nasrallah's threats, as did the republic's main ally, Greece. Turkey, conversely, warned Cyprus "to stay away from the conflict" in the region.
The armed forces of Cyprus have hosted training exercises with their Israeli counterparts on the island. Cyprus has maintained an official policy of neutrality in Israel's ongoing war with Hamas in Gaza, which it has reiterated since Nasrallah's threat. The island serves as a hub for the maritime humanitarian corridor the US and the EU have tried to establish for shipping aid to Gaza. According to officials, relations between the US and Cyprus recently "reached their highest level yet," raising hopes that the US will fully lift its arms embargo on the island. Warming ties will undoubtedly help Cyprus weather Hezbollah's threat.
"Public threats are taken seriously, and they can generate a political response," Tzogopoulos said. "The Republic of Cyprus is able to expose the tactics of Hezbollah at the EU level and simultaneously seek support by the US."
"Hezbollah's public threats could turn out to be a double-edged sword for it," Tzogopoulos added. "In terms of security, I would not expect a country like the Republic of Cyprus, which is so close to the US and Israel, to start preparations against a possible attack as a result of public threats."
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Nevertheless, Hezbollah could harm Cyprus if it carries out its threat. The group flew three unarmed drones over Israel's Karish gas-drilling platform in 2022, demonstrating its capability to threaten targets within Israel's maritime zone. Tzogopoulos suspects that Hezbollah could "perhaps employ similar tactics" inside Cyprus's economic exclusive zone, which is also well within the range of the group's drones and missiles.
"The Israeli capacity to shoot down Hezbollah's drones in 2022 could be a model for the Republic of Cyprus," Tzogopoulos said. "In fact, this is the substance of the strategic cooperation between Israel and the Republic of Cyprus."
Israel, the analyst noted, is also "prepared to share part of its technological and military know-how" with the island republic. Before the Gaza war that began in the wake of Hamas' Oct. 7 terror attacks, reports emerged that Cyprus was negotiating the acquisition of Israeli Merkava Mark III main battle tanks and even Israel's well-known Iron Dome air defense system.
Existing air defenses in the Cypriot National Guard are limited to short- to medium-range systems like the Russian Tor and Buk. These systems are no match for the powerful surface-to-surface missiles in Hezbollah's arsenal, which include the Iranian-designed Fateh series of short-range ballistic missiles, many of which have the range to reach the Cypriot capital Nicosia roughly 180 miles away.
Hezbollah's expansive arsenal includes up to 150,000 rockets and missiles and approximately 2,000 drones of various types, many of them based on Iranian designs. These include a Syrian variant of the Iranian Fateh-110 missile, the M-600. That GPS-guided missile is almost 9 meters long.
Hezbollah's drones have recently posed significant challenges to Israel's sophisticated, multi-layered air defenses, including the Iron Dome. While many of these drones are relatively low-tech, such as the cheap and locally assembled Mersad and Ayoub models, others are more advanced models based on Iranian designs like the Ababil, Mohajer, and Shahed series. In addition to launching barrages of one-way explosive drones, Hezbollah attacked a military post in northern Israel in May using a drone that fired two missiles inside Israeli airspace.
Hezbollah has also amassed an arsenal of increasingly sophisticated anti-ship missiles in recent years, most notably the Russian-made Yakhont, which boasts a range of 186 miles.
Such capabilities would undoubtedly pose a significant threat to Cyprus in the event of war.
Experts have already noted that such missiles also enable Hezbollah to target Britain's Akrotiri air base on the island, which supported US-led airstrikes against Hezbollah's ally, the Houthis in Yemen. "For Hezbollah to target British bases in Cyprus would be a high risk," Tzogopoulos said. "The British-American response to such a scenario would be strong. Nothing is to be excluded in times of general instability, but Hezbollah will pay a heavy price if it targets British bases in Cyprus."
Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, believes that Nasrallah's threat is also directed at other countries, specifically Greece. Hezbollah seeks to send the message "that all of the Eastern Mediterranean is within range of its attacks" if the group "feels existentially threatened" by a full-scale war with Israel, he said.
"Cyprus, although it could serve as a route for the Israeli Air Force to target Hezbollah in Lebanon, or Hezbollah assets in Syria, is nowhere near as important a security partner to Israel as Greece has become over the past several years," Heras told BI.
The New Lines analyst noted the Israeli Defense Forces has used Greece as a "key site" for training for another potential war in Lebanon. Greece allows the Israeli Air Force to train over parts of the country with "topographical similarities" to Lebanon.
"Greece, a NATO country, is not a likely target for Hezbollah, but Cyprus, a country with close cultural and other ties to Greece, serves as a stand-in for Greece for potential intimidation purposes," Heras said.
"Hezbollah's longer-range, Iranian-supplied missiles could strike Greece."
