British man arrested on suspicion of terror offences near vital UK airbase

A British man has been arrested on suspicion of espionage and terrorism offences in Cyprus.

The man is reported to have kept the RAF Akrotiri base on the island under surveillance and is alleged to have links with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

RAF Akrotiri is the UK’s most important airbase for operations in the Middle East.

Local media reported the man was arrested on Friday following intelligence that he was planning an imminent terrorist attack.

He is alleged to have lived in a flat in Zakai, Limassol, close to Akrotiri and was observed near the base carrying a camera with a long lens and three mobile phones.

Local reports suggested he was Azerbaijani, but the UK Foreign Office said they were working with the authorities over the arrest of a Briton.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: ‘We are in contact with the authorities in Cyprus regarding the arrest of a British man.’

His arrest comes amid heightened tensions between Iran and Israel, as both countries have fired missiles at each other for well over a week now.

Today, Israel’s military said it struck an Iranian nuclear research facility overnight and killed three senior Iranian commanders in targeted attacks as the war between the two nations continued into a second week.

The prospect of a wider war is threatened too, as Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen said they would resume attacks on US vessels and warships in the Red Sea if the Trump administration joins Israel’s military campaign against Iran.

The Houthis had paused such attacks in May as part of a deal with the administration.

Early on Saturday, smoke could be seen rising from an area near a mountain in Isfahan, where a local official said Israel had attacked the nuclear research facility in two waves.

The target was two centrifuge production sites, and the attacks came on top of strikes on other centrifuge production sites elsewhere in recent days, according to an Israeli military official speaking on condition of anonymity under army guidelines to brief reporters.

It was the second attack on Isfahan, which was hit in the first 24 hours of the war as part of Israel’s goal to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme.

Akbar Salehi, Isfahan province’s deputy governor for security affairs, confirmed the Israeli strikes had caused damage to the facility, but said there had been no human casualties.

Iran launched a new wave of drones and missiles at Israel, but there were no immediate reports of significant damage, and the Israeli official called it a ‘small barrage’ that was largely intercepted by Israel’s defences.

The official said part of the reason that Iran’s overnight attack had been relatively small was that the military had been targeting its launchers, and estimates it has now taken out more than 50% of them.

‘We’ve been able to take out a large amount of their launchers, creating a bottleneck – we’re making it harder for them to fire toward Israel,’ he said.

‘Having said all that, I want to say the Iranian regime obviously still has capabilities.’

US President Donald Trump is still weighing active US military involvement in the war but, on Saturday, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said, ‘I think that it would be very, very dangerous for everyone.’

He spoke on the sidelines of an Organisation of Islamic Cooperation meeting in Turkey.

Barring a commando raid or even a nuclear strike, Iran’s underground Fordo uranium enrichment facility is considered out of reach to all but America’s “bunker-buster” bombs.

Trump said he would put off his decision on military involvement for up to two weeks.

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