U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened to send federal immigration agents to airports across the country on Monday if Democrats don’t agree to end the Department of Homeland Security shutdown, now approaching five weeks. “If the Radical Left Democrats don’t immediately sign an agreement to let our Country, in particular, our Airports, be FREE and SAFE again, I will move our brilliant and patriotic ICE Agents to the Airports where they will do Security like no one has ever seen before, including the immediate arrest of all Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country,” he wrote. “Illegal Immigrants who have come into our Country, with heavy emphasis on those from Somalia” would be targeted with an especially firm hand, the president wrote on Truth Social. Shortly thereafter, Trump followed up to say he plans to send ICE to airports in just days. “I look forward to moving ICE in on Monday, and have already told them to, ‘GET READY.’ NO MORE WAITING, NO MORE GAMES!” he wrote in a separate Truth Social post on Saturday. It’s his latest bid to push Democrats, who have refused to greenlight DHS funding without changes to how it carries out immigration enforcement, pointing to deadly incidents as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents descended en masse on major American cities. Increased callouts among TSA agents and airport staffers are expected to roil airports in the coming weeks, with major interruptions to airport procedure likely to follow. Both sides have seemingly made progress in recent days toward ending the shutdown. The White House made several concessions on immigration enforcement policies in a proposal shared with Senate Democrats on Friday. But the ICE agent masking ban Democrats are seeking in exchange for their support on a funding package remains a bridge too far, Republicans argue. Trump’s latest threat isn’t likely to make the prospects of a truce any more viable, especially given his focus on Minnesota, where tensions flared after federal immigration agents killed two protesters during a major surge of personnel in January. In a post on X following Trump’s threat, Rep. Lauren Boebert said, “The airport in Minnesota is about to be a ghost town.” The president’s threat Saturday lands squarely in the middle of a confirmation fight over his pick to run DHS, Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), a process that has quickly become a proxy battle over the future of ICE itself. At his hearing this week, Mullin tried to strike a more measured tone than in some of his past remarks, pledging to rein in some enforcement tactics and lower the agency’s public profile. But he repeatedly defended ICE agents amid mounting scrutiny, including backing officers involved in high-profile civilian deaths and arguing Democrats are tying the agency’s hands. Republicans — including Mullin — have instead pushed to expand ICE’s resources and authority, framing the standoff as a fight over public safety. The backdrop is the messy ouster of Kristi Noem, whose tenure was defined by aggressive deportation policies, costly PR campaigns and a series of controversies that ultimately led Trump to push her out after a bruising round of congressional hearings. The enforcement-heavy approach Trump threatened Saturday sets up a preview for what Mullin will perhaps be asked to defend — and potentially formalize — as the next head of DHS. ICE and the Transportation Security Administration did not immediately respond to requests for comment from POLITICO.

A senior figure in Iran’s Kurdish opposition has tied any potential ground incursion into Iran to a major U.S. military decision: the establishment of a no-fly zone over Kurdish areas in western Iran. This was necessary “so that the Islamic Republic cannot attack from the air and use its military superiority,” Reza Kaabi said in an interview in Erbil with WELT, which is — as is POLITICO — part of the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network. Kaabi is the secretary-general of the Komala of the Toilers of Kurdistan, an armed Iranian Kurdish party based in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. The party maintains its own Peshmerga units and is among the Kurdish groups that could provide ground troops in the event of an escalation. For further developments, “on the one hand the policy of President Trump, and on the other the Kurds themselves” would be decisive, he said. There have been no direct talks with the Trump administration, but the demand for a no-fly zone has been “conveyed,” he added. “The demand is clear,” he said. “We expect it to be implemented.” Whether and when Iranian Kurdish forces from Iraq “return to their own territory depends on the situation. I believe we are approaching such conditions,” Kaabi said. Such a step would depend on several factors, according to him. In addition to the readiness of the Peshmerga, political cohesion among the Kurdish parties would have to be strengthened, the population prepared, and above all international support secured. Kaabi also referred to the period after the 1991 Gulf War. At that time, the United States, Britain and France established a no-fly zone in northern Iraq to protect Kurdish areas from air attacks by Saddam Hussein. As a result, the militarily secured space enabled the Kurdish autonomous region to develop. Kaabi is one of the central leaders of a recently formed alliance of Iranian Kurdish opposition parties that has repeatedly been mentioned in connection with a possible ground offensive in Iran. “We (…) are fighting for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic,” Kaabi said about the alliance’s objectives. “We are calling for a democratic, secular and federal Iran.” The Komala party in Iraq is part of this alliance and maintains its own military structures. “We have three camps,” Kaabi said. “In these three camps our Peshmerga are stationed, trained and ready. At present around one thousand fighters are ready for deployment.” The other groups in the alliance also maintain armed forces. They are led in a decentralized manner; according to Kaabi, a central command structure is not currently planned. The U.S. position regarding a possible Kurdish ground offensive in Iran has so far been contradictory. On Thursday, Trump told the Reuters news agency it would be “wonderful” if Iranian Kurdish militias in Iraq crossed the border to Iran. On Saturday, however, he said: “I don’t want the Kurds to go into Iran.” Turkey had previously warned that “the instrumentalization of ethnic or religious groups” could trigger a civil war in Iran, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Saturday in Istanbul. He added he had also discussed the issue with his U.S. counterpart Marco Rubio. The Kurdish minority in Iraq has come under Iranian fire in recent days. In Erbil, the capital of the autonomous Kurdistan Region of Iraq, the airport was attacked by drones. There were also numerous attacks in Sulaymaniyah near the Iranian border.

Israel threatened to target anyone who succeeds or seeks to appoint a successor to Iran’s deceased Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The Israeli military issued the warning in a social media post in Farsi on X, as the clerical body in charge of picking the new Iranian leader reportedly reached a decision on Sunday. Khamenei was killed in a bombing raid last week after the U.S. and Israel targeted his compound in the Iranian capital of Tehran. Khamenei’s death ended his almost 37-year rule as supreme leader Israel justified the attacks as a preemptive strike to protect itself. U.S. President Donald Trump, after days of mixed signals from the White House on the justifications and aims of the war, said on Friday that the ultimate goal is “unconditional surrender” by the Islamic Republic’s leaders.  The continuing attacks haven’t stopped Tehran from seeking a successor to Khamenei. Iran’s Mehr news agency reported on Sunday that Iran’s Assembly of Experts, the clerical body tasked with selecting the next leader, had reached a decision, although the name hasn’t been announced yet. “The vote to appoint the leader has taken place and the leader has been chosen,” Ahmad Alamolhoda, a member of the Assembly of Experts, was quoted as saying by Mehr. He said the secretariat of the body will announce the name later. Ayatollah Hashem Hosseini Bushehri, the head of the assembly’s secretariat, will be responsible for ⁠announcing the decision. Among the top criteria for the next leader is that they should “be hated by the enemy,” according to a member of the selection panel, Reuters reported. The assembly’s vote came even as the war in Iran continued to spill into the wider Persian Gulf region, as Tehran targeted U.S. and Israeli military bases across the Middle East with drone and missile attacks. Iran on Sunday also hit fuel tanks at Kuwait’s international airport and damaged a desalination plant in Bahrain, AFP reported. Iran’s President Massoud Pezeshkian on Saturday apologized to neighboring countries for launching attacks on their soil where U.S. military bases are located. A few hours later, the Iranian judiciary chief said strikes would continue in Gulf countries that are “at the disposal of the enemy.” Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait have all reported attacks. Trump took to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to claim credit for Pezeshkian’s apology, adding that “Iran will be hit very hard!”

Scattered among the candy shelves and freezer cabinets in Russian supermarkets across Germany are advertisements promoting a business with a service the government has tried to outlaw: a logistics company specialized in moving packages from the heart of Germany to Russia, in defiance of European Union sanctions. Trade restrictions have been in place since 2014 and were tightened just after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, when Western nations began to impose far-reaching financial and trade sanctions on Russia. But an investigation by the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network, which includes POLITICO, has identified a clandestine Berlin-based postal system that exploits the special status of postal parcels to transport all kinds of European goods — including banned electronics components — into President Vladimir Putin’s empire. We know every stop and turn in the route because we sent five packages and used digital tracking devices to follow them — through an illicit 1,100-mile journey that undermines the sanctions regime European policymakers consider their strongest tool to generate political pressure on Russian leaders by weakening their country’s economy. LS Logistics said its internal controls make violations of EU sanctions “virtually impossible” but that it was not immune from customers making fraudulent declarations about the goods they ship. “Sanctions enforcement is whack-a-mole,” said David Goldwyn, who worked on sanctions policy as U.S. State Department coordinator for international energy affairs and now chairs the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center’s energy advisory group. “It’s a hard process, and you have to constantly be adapting to how the evaders are adapting.” THE UZBEK LABEL In late December, we packed five square brown parcels with electronic components specifically banned under EU sanctions and addressed the parcels to locations in Moscow and St. Petersburg. When we brought our parcels to the counters of Russian supermarkets in Berlin, we told salespeople the packages included books, scarves and hats. But they never checked inside the packages, which in fact held banned electronic components we rendered unusable before packing. Salespeople charged us 13 euros per kilogram, about $7 per pound, refusing to provide receipts. What makes these cardboard packages even more special is their disguise: The employee does not affix Russian postal stickers to the boxes, but rather those of UzPost, the national postal service of Uzbekistan. The former Soviet republic is not subject to EU sanctions. UzPost maintains close ties to the Russian postal service, according to a person familiar with the entities’ history of cooperation granted anonymity to discuss confidential business practices. Tatyana Kim, the CEO of Russian ecommerce marketplace Wildberries and reputedly her country’s richest woman, recently acquired a large stake in UzPost, according to media reports. “We work with partners, including private postal service providers,” the Uzbek postal service stated in response to our inquiry. “They can use our solutions for deliveries.” In Germany, registered logistics companies are permitted to provide postal services — including pick-up, sorting and delivery — for international postal operators. However, the Federal Network Agency, which is responsible for postal oversight, says the Uzbek postal service is not authorized to perform any of these functions in Germany. (The Federal Network Agency said in a response to our inquiry that it is “currently reviewing” the case and that it would pursue penalties for LS if it is found to be using Uzbek documents without authorization.) After our packages spent one to two days at the supermarkets, we saw them begin to move. Inside each package we had placed a small black GPS device, naming them “Alpha,” “Beta,” “Gamma,” “Delta” and “Epsi.” We could track their movements in real time in an app, watching them closely as they wound through Berlin’s roads to Schönefeld, site of the capital’s international airport. There they stopped, unloaded into a modern warehouse that has been repurposed into a Russian shadow postal service. COLOGNE, TECHNICALLY In 2014, a retired professional gymnast was tasked with launching a subsidiary of Russia’s national postal service, the RusPost GmbH, which would operate with official authorization to collect, process and deliver postal items in Germany, according to a former employee granted anonymity to speak openly about the business. For 18 years, the St. Petersburg-raised Alexey Grigoryev had competed and coached at Germany’s highest levels, winning three national championship titles with the KTV Straubenhardt team and working with an Olympic gold medalist on the high bar. But he had no evident experience in the postal business. RusPost’s German business model collapsed upon the imposition of an expanded sanctions package in the weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Much like American sanctions on Russia, the European Union blocks sensitive technical materials that could boost the Russian defense sector, while allowing the export of personal effects and quotidian consumer items. “The sanctions are accompanied by far-reaching export bans, particularly on goods relevant to the war, in order to put pressure on the Russian war economy,” according to a statement the Federal Ministry of Economics provided us. In March 2022, while conducting random checks of postal traffic to Moscow, customs officials discovered sanctioned goods (including cash, jewelry and electrical appliances) in numerous RusPost packages. The Berlin public prosecutor’s office launched an investigation of the company, concluding that a former RusPost managing director had deliberately failed to set up effective control mechanisms, in breach of his duties. He was charged with 62 counts of attempting to violate the Foreign Trade and Payments Act over an eight-month period; criminal proceedings are ongoing. The Russian postal network did not quite disappear, however. A new company called LS Logistics Solution GmbH was formed in December 2022, according to corporate filings. LS filled its top jobs, including customs manager and head of customer service, with former RusPost employees, according to their LinkedIn profiles. The new company listed as its business address an inconspicuous semi-detached house in a residential area of Cologne, across from a church. When we visited, we found an old white mailbox whose plated sign lists LS Logistics alongside dozens of other companies supposed to be housed there. But none of them seemed to be active. The building was empty during business hours, its mailbox overflowing with discolored brochures and old newspapers. The operational heart of LS is the warehouse complex in Berlin-Schönefeld, just a few minutes from the capital’s airport. The building itself is functional and anonymous: a long, gray industrial structure with several metal rolling doors, some fitted with narrow window slits. Through them, towering stacks of parcels are visible, packed tightly, sorted roughly, stretching deep into the hall. Trucks arrive and depart regularly, from loading bays lit by harsh white floodlights that cut through the otherwise quiet industrial area. Behind the warehouse lies a wide concrete parking lot where a black BMW SUV with a license plate bearing the initials AG is often parked. We saw a man resembling Grigoryev enter the car. The former head of RusPost officially withdrew from the postal business after authorities froze the company’s operations. Unofficially, however, the 50-year-old’s continued presence in Schönefeld suggests otherwise. According to one former RusPost employee, the warehouse near the airport serves as a collection point for parcels from all over Europe. Other logistics companies with Russian management have listed the warehouse as their business address, some of their logos decorating the façade. LS Logistics Solution GmbH has the largest sign of them all. THE A2 GETAWAY According to tracking devices, our packages spent several days in the warehouse before being loaded onto 40-ton trucks covered with grey tarps, among several that leave every day loaded with mail. They were then driven toward the Polish border, through the German city of Frankfurt (Oder). Without any long stops, the 40-ton trucks traversed Poland on the A2 motorway, past Warsaw. Two days after leaving Berlin, they were approaching the eastern edge of the European Union. They arrived at a border checkpoint in Brest, the Belarusian city where more than a hundred years ago Russia signed a peace pact with Germany to withdraw from World War I. Now it marked the last place for European officials to identify contraband leaving for countries they consider adversaries. In 2022, the European Union applied a separate set of sanctions on Belarus because its leader, Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Putin, has supported Russia’s presence in Ukraine. Yet despite provisions that should have stopped our packages from leaving Poland, they moved onward into Belarus, their tracking devices apparently undetected. What makes this possible is the special legal status that accompanies international mail. While a formal export declaration is required for the export of regular goods, such as those moving via container ship or rail freight, simplified paperwork helps speed up the departure process for postal items. At Europe’s borders, this distinction becomes crucial, as postal packages are examined largely on risk-based checks rather than comprehensive inspections. “International postal items are subject to the regular provisions of customs supervision both on import and on export and transit and are checked on a risk-oriented basis in accordance with applicable EU and national legislation, including with regard to compliance with sanctions regulations,” the German General Customs Directorate stated in response to our inquiry. Two of our tracking devices briefly lost their signal in Belarus — likely part of a widespread pattern of satellite navigation systems being disrupted across Eastern Europe — but after a journey of around 1,100 miles, they all showed the same destination. Our packages had reached Russia’s largest cities. Ukrainian authorities told us they were not surprised by our investigation. The country’s presidential envoy for sanctions policy, Vladyslav Vlasiuk, said at the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin that his government regularly collects intelligence on such schemes and shares it with international partners. “Nobody is doing enough, if you look at the number of cases,” Vlasiuk said. ONE STEP BEHIND After the arrival of the packages, we confronted all parties involved, including LS Logistics Solution GmbH, the mysterious shipper that helped transport the goods from Europe to Russia. We called Grigoryev several times, but he never answered; efforts to reach him through the company failed as well. An LS executive would not answer our questions about his role. “Our internal control mechanisms are designed in such a way that violations of EU sanctions are virtually impossible,” LS managing director Anjelika Crone wrote to us. “Shipments that do not meet the legal requirements are not processed further. We are not immune to fraudulent misdeclarations, such as those that obviously underlie the ‘test shipments’ you refer to.” Crone said she could not answer further questions due to data protection and contractual confidentiality concerns. This month, Germany took steps to strengthen enforcement of its sanctions regime, expanding the range of violations subject to criminal penalties. The law, passed by the Bundestag in January, amends the country’s Foreign Trade and Payments Act to integrate a European Union directive harmonizing criminal sanctions law across its 27 member states and ensure efficient, uniform enforcement. Germany was one of the 18 countries put on notice by EU officials last May for having failed to follow the 2024 directive. The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, which is responsible for implementing the new policy, argued in a statement to the Axel Springer Global Reporters Network that the very ingenuity of the logistics network we unmasked operating within Germany was a testament to the strength of the country’s sanctions regime. “The state-organized Russian procurement systems operate at enormous financial expense to create ever new and more complex diversion routes,” said ministry spokesperson Tim-Niklas Wentzel. “This confirms that the considerable compliance efforts of many companies and the work of the sanctions enforcement authorities in combating circumvention are also having a practical effect. Procurement is becoming increasingly difficult, time-consuming, and expensive for Russia.” According to those who have tried to administer sanctions laws, that argument rings true — but only partly. “It’s probably more fair to say that sanctions had a material impact and increased the cost of bad actors to achieve their goals. But to say that they’re working well is probably overstating the truth of the matter,” said Max Meizlish, formerly an official with the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control and now a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “When there’s evasion, it requires enforcement,” Meizlish went on. “And when you need more enforcement I think it’s hard to make a compelling case that the tool is working as intended.” The Axel Springer Global Reporters Network is a multi-publication initiative publishing scoops, investigations, interviews, op-eds and analysis that reverberate across the world. It connects journalists from Axel Springer brands—including POLITICO, Business Insider, WELT, BILD, and Onet— on major stories for an international audience. Their ambitious reporting stretches across Axel Springer platforms: online, print, TV, and audio. Together, these outlets reach hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

LONDON — The Iranian regime is warning it will attack European cities in any country that joins Donald Trump’s military operation and governments across the region are stepping up security in response. So far, Iranian drones have already targeted Cyprus, with one striking a British Royal Air Force base on the island, and others shot down before they could hit. That prompted the U.K., France and Greece to send jets, warships and helicopters to Cyprus to protect the country from further drone attacks. But with the British, French and German leaders saying they are ready to launch defensive military action in the Middle East, Tehran threatened to retaliate against these countries with attacks on European soil. “It would be an act of war. Any such act against Iran would be regarded as complicity with the aggressors. It would be regarded as an act of war against Iran,” Esmail Baghaei, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson, told Iranian state media. Mark Rutte, the former Dutch Prime Minister who now leads NATO, warned on Tuesday that Tehran posed a threat that reached deep into Europe. “Let’s be absolutely clear-eyed to what’s happening here,” Rutte said. “Iran is close to getting its hands on a nuclear capability and on a ballistic missile capability, which is posing a threat not only to the region — the Middle East, including posing an existential threat to Israel — it is also posing a huge threat to us here in Europe.” Iran is “an exporter of chaos” responsible over decades for terrorist plots and assassination attempts, including against people living on European soil, he said.  Here, POLITICO sets out what Iran is capable of, and where European countries may be at greatest risk.  MISSILES AIMED AT ATHENS AND EVEN BERLIN According to reports, Iran has been developing an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 10,000 kilometers, which would put European and even American territory potentially within range, said Antonio Giustozzi from the Royal United Services Institute think tank in London. It is not clear whether, under constant attack, Tehran would be able to manufacture and deploy an experimental missile like this, he said.  “Realistically, the further away you fire them, the less precise they will be,” Giustozzi told POLITICO. “Let’s say they had four or five long-range missiles. There may be some value to target something in Europe just to create some excitement and scare public opinion from intervening.”  Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal is known to include several medium-range systems that stretch to roughly 2,000 kilometers, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies’ Missile Threat database. The solid-fueled Sejjil and Khorramshahr missiles are both assessed to have about that range, which would extend to parts of southeastern Europe from Iranian territory, including areas of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania, depending on the launch location. Romania has a U.S. missile shield site at Deveselu in the southern part of the country which was built to intercept potential missile attacks from Iran. This week, military security was stepped up at the site, according to Romania’s defense minister.  Tehran has long described 2,000 kilometers as a self-imposed ceiling for its ballistic missile program — a limit that keeps most of Europe outside of the envelope while preserving regional reach.  Defence Express, a Kyiv-based defense consultancy group, said the Khorramshahr missile may be capable of hitting targets 3,000 kilometers away if it was fitted with a lighter warhead, potentially bringing Berlin and Rome within range. However, the number of such long-range missiles in Iran’s arsenal is unlikely to be large.  ‘SHAHED’ DRONES AND TOYS PACKED WITH EXPLOSIVES  Iran has invested heavily in drone development and production, and these uncrewed projectiles may be its best flexible weapon. Iran’s “Shahed” drones have been deployed by Russian forces since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. These one-way attack drones have a range claimed to be as much as 2,500 kilometers.  To reach targets inside European territory they would need to fly at low altitude across countries such as Turkey and Jordan, though Cyprus has already found out it is within range. Analysts believe the drone that hit U.K.’s RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus was likely a shahed-type, and may have been fired from Lebanon by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy.  But Giustozzi said commercially available drones — even toys — could be used to cause havoc inside Europe. Iran is known to have a network of sleeper agents operating across many countries in Europe, he said, who use criminal groups to carry out attacks.  They could be tasked with a coordinated effort to fly drones over civilian airports, forcing flights to be halted and causing chaos to air traffic across Europe, he said. This would be cheap and easy to do. More ambitious attacks could include striking military targets with drones loaded with explosives. A residential building and cars are damaged by a Shahed drone attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine, last month. The drones have been deployed by Russian forces since the early days of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. | Pavlo Pakhomenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images But such risk may be low, Giustozzi said, as Iran may not have been able to smuggle bomb making components into European countries as this has not been its primary mode of operation in the region in recent years.  HIT SQUADS AND TERRORISTS  Tehran’s recent focus has been on intimidating and targeting people and groups who are critical of the regime, particularly among the large Iranian diaspora dispersed widely across European countries, according to analysts.  According to an intelligence summary from one Western government, Iran has a long record of plots to assassinate and attack targets inside Europe. Its state-sponsored terrorism involves a mix of direct operations by Iranian forces and, according to the intelligence summary, a growing reliance on organized criminal gangs to maintain “plausible deniability.”  In the past decade, incidents have included the arrest of Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi for providing explosives to a couple tasked with bombing a large rally of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). Assadi was sentenced to 20 years in prison.  After massive cyberattacks against state infrastructure, the Albanian government formally severed all ties with Iran in 2022. Four years earlier, Albania expelled the Iranian ambassador and several diplomats for plotting a truck bomb attack against an Iranian dissident camp. The Dutch government accused Iran of involvement in the targeted killing of two dissidents, in 2015 and 2017.  Suspected Iranian-backed assassination plots and other attacks have also been reported in Belgium, Cyprus, France, Germany, Sweden, and the U.K., among other countries in Europe.  CYBER ATTACKS  The threat to Europeans from Iran is not just physical, with the regime long being regarded as a capable actor in cyber warfare.   Experts and officials warned Iran could launch fresh cyber operations against Europe in the wake of the war started by the U.S. and Israel, either by targeting governments directly or by hitting critical infrastructure operators.  “We have to monitor now the situation very carefully when it comes to our cyber security and especially our critical infrastructure,” European Commission Executive Vice President Henna Virkkunen told POLITICO. “We know that the online dimension is also very important, the recruiting channel and especially the propaganda is also spread very much online.” Iran is typically seen as one of the big four cyber adversaries to the West — alongside Russia, China and North Korea. So far, however, there is little evidence to suggest it’s actively targeting Europe. In fact, Iran’s cyber activity has largely stopped since the U.S. bombing began, according to one senior European cybersecurity official, granted anonymity to discuss ongoing assessments.  If and when European countries make their support for U.S. and Israeli activities more explicit, that will likely draw them into the firing line, cyber industry officials said. “Europe should definitely expect that exactly what happened in the Gulf could happen and should happen in Europe,” said Gil Messing, chief of staff at Israeli cyber firm Check Point. EU Commissioner Henna Virkkunen spoke of the need to monitor cyber security and especially critical infrastructure. | Thierry Monasse/Getty Images Messing said his firm is already seeing evidence of cyberattacks in Cyprus, the only EU country that Iran has targeted with physical attacks so far. There’s no evidence of attacks in other European countries but it’s likely coming down the tracks, he said. And if attacks do take place, Iran’s capabilities, though lessened in recent years, remain significant, experts said. Iran’s security and intelligence services have cyber units comprising hundreds of people, with tens of millions of dollars of funding, Messing said. “If the regime lasts,” the senior official quoted above said, “they will be back.” Victor Goury-Laffont, Laura Kayali, Antoaneta Roussi, Joshua Berlinger and Sebastian Starcevic contributed reporting.

ATHENS — Greece ordered the deployment of a military force to Cyprus following drone incursions on the Mediterranean island that have for the first time dragged an EU member state into the three-day-old U.S.-Israeli campaign against Iran. Two frigates and a pair of F-16 fighter jets will be deployed immediately, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Dendias said on Monday. “Following the unprovoked attacks on the territory of Cyprus, Greece will … contribute in every possible way to the defense of the Republic of Cyprus in order to address the threats and illegal actions taking place on its territory,” Dendias said in an address on Monday. The move comes after a Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicle hit Britain’s Royal Air Force base at Akrotiri in Cyprus overnight, while more drone strikes targeting the base were “successfully intercepted” during the day, according to Cypriot government spokesman Konstantinos Letymbiotis. While the source of the drone strike is so far unconfirmed, a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has threatened intensified missile strikes on Cyprus, alleging an increased U.S. military presence on the island. “The Americans have moved most of their aircraft to Cyprus. We will launch missiles at Cyprus with such intensity that the Americans will be forced to leave the island,” General Sardar Jabbari was quoted on Monday as saying by Khabar Fouri, an Iranian Telegram news channel. It’s the first time one of the U.K. bases on Cyprus has been hit since a rocket attack by Libyan ⁠militants in 1986. While the bases are regarded as British sovereign territory, Cyprus is an EU member, and currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency. An EU ministerial meeting that was set to take place in Cyprus on Monday and Tuesday was postponed after the drone strike. Greece said it is dispatching to Cyprus the Belharra-class frigate Kimon and a second frigate equipped with the Kentauros anti-drone system. A pair of F-16 fighter jets will also be deployed. Dendias along with General Dimitrios Choupis, chief of Greece’s armed forces, will be on the island on Tuesday to better coordinate the stance of the two allies. Akrotiri, located on a peninsula on the southern tip of Cyprus, southwest of the coastal city of Limassol, is one of the two bases Britain has maintained in its former colony since independence in 1960. It has been used in the past for military operations in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. The overnight strike, which caused limited damage and no casualties, came shortly after British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced that he would allow the United States to use U.K. military bases to “destroy [Iranian] missiles at source.” After confirming the drone strike, Cyprus President Nicos Christodoulides said in a televised address on Monday: “I want ⁠to be clear: Our country ‌does not ⁠participate in any way and does not intend to be part of any military operation.” Christodoulides briefed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the attack. Von der Leyen later stressed that Cyprus — and thus the EU — was not the intended target of the drone strike. “While the Republic of Cyprus was not the target, let me be clear: we stand collectively, firmly and unequivocally with our member states in the face of any threat,” von der Leyen said in a post on X. Also, earlier in the day, a passenger terminal at Paphos airport was temporarily evacuated after a suspicious object was detected on radar. Residents of the nearby villages of Timi, Anarita and Mandria were instructed to avoid “unnecessary movements.” Paphos is a coastal city in southwest Cyprus, some 56 kilometers from the Akrotiri base.  Cypriot media also reported smoke rising near the other British airbase at Dhekelia, located on the island’s southeast coast. The U.K. Foreign Office has updated its travel guidance for Cyprus, warning British nationals of a heightened risk of regional tension during the U.S.-led war against Iran.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — We had been laughing about a dismal performance in this year’s edition of the Italian Sanremo song contest — when we heard a big bang outside. The boom triggered an alarm in our modernist apartment block beside Dubai’s towering Burj Khalifa, and the phones all began buzzing with an emergency government notification: “Please remain indoors in safe areas.” We grabbed our passports, bolted down the staircase and hunkered down in the garage. There are no air raid shelters in Dubai. During an almost sleepless night, I checked my phone every hour — giving me a slight glimpse of what ordinary Ukrainians have endured for more than four years. Until now, none of us — presumably not even Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, who rushed back to Rome in a military plane from Dubai on Sunday — could have imagined having to seek shelter in this glitzy resort town, which has monetized its reputation as a safe harbor from tensions in the Middle East.   My plans on Saturday to fly to Nicosia, Cyprus to cover an upcoming meeting of EU ministers after stopping over in Dubai to visit a friend were suddenly obliterated by Iran’s unprecedented strikes on Gulf countries including the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The UAE’s Ministry of Defense said that within 24 hours the country was attacked by 165 ballistic missiles, two cruise missiles and 541 drones — most of which were destroyed by their air defenses. Debris from those intercepts hit Dubai Airport and two luxurious hotels, Fairmont The Palm and Burj Al Arab. It soon became clear that Dubai’s Western expats — an exotic mix of high-flying corporates, influencers and holiday-goers like me — were poorly equipped to handle a crisis. Few people chose to take the stairs — a no-brainer when drones and missiles are flying above the city. Several residents waited in the reception area with their chihuahuas and cats — the sound of barking and meows being drowned out by the roar of sports cars heading for nearby highways. “Where on earth are they going?” I wondered. We had dismissed the well-intended advice of an acquaintance to drive for more than two hours to Oman — a theoretical safe haven, until it was targeted by Iranian strikes the following morning. On Sunday, Dubai’s usually choked highways were empty as ominous blasts continued to echo throughout the city. Buzzy Kite Beach — which had been bustling with bulked-up joggers before the conflict erupted — emptied the following day. Any unexpected noise drew panicked reactions from the few beach-goers who continued to order avocado toasts. Buzzy Kite Beach — which had been bustling with bulked-up joggers before the conflict erupted — emptied the following day. | Andrew Aitchison/AFP via Getty Images Despite the unease, the legions of people who deliver food on tiny mopeds never stopped working and continued to supply the homebound population. They reminded me of the nurses and doctors who kept the medical system afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s too early to tell whether Iran’s attack will permanently damage Dubai’s image as a safe and trendy melting pot. “Iran did not strike a military base in Dubai. It struck the idea of Dubai,” the analyst and author Shanaka Anslem Perera wrote on X. “Dubai is a financial thesis. It is the proposition that you can build a global city at the mouth of the Persian Gulf and insulate it from the region’s violence.” But as in every crisis, Dubai’s sharky financiers, at least, see an opportunity. “It’s the right time to buy property, prices will massively go down after the attacks,” a young consultant enthused to me as I tried to blink away the sleepless night.

Belgium’s Prime Minister Bart De Wever said the Port of Antwerp-Bruges will get its own anti-aircraft defenses by next year, as the Belgian government moves to fortify one of Europe’s most critical trade gateways. De Wever also confirmed that Belgium has ordered a separate anti-drone system after multiple drone sightings last year forced the temporary closure of Belgian airports and a military airbase, the Gazet van Antwerpen reported. “An air-defense system is coming to the port of Antwerp. It’s a NASAMS type and has already been ordered,” De Wever said at the port, according to the Gazet report. Belgium said last October that it had purchased NASAMS systems without disclosing where they would be deployed. De Wever had already pushed for air defenses at the Antwerp port in 2024, warning that “if you want peace, prepare for war.” NASAMS — a Norwegian-American medium-range air-defense system — is built to intercept aircraft and drones, and is typically used to shield high-value infrastructure. The Antwerp port, Europe’s second-largest, is a petrochemical powerhouse and a key NATO logistics hub, including for the flow of U.S. military equipment into Europe. Drone incursions last year caused major disruptions in Belgium and other NATO countries, with drones spotted over the Port of Antwerp — including the BASF chemical site and the Europa terminal — as well as over nuclear facilities elsewhere in the country. The move to boost defenses in Antwerp comes amid Belgium’s effort to strengthen ground-based air defenses after decades of underinvestment. NATO allies including Spain and the Netherlands have fielded NASAMS for years. With Russia’s war in Ukraine having just entered its fifth year and transatlantic nerves fraying, EU capitals are increasingly preparing to protect critical infrastructure themselves rather than assuming Washington will step in.

Lufthansa announced today it expects a strike announced “at short notice” for Thursday to impact its flight schedule. The industrial action was called by the flight attendants’ union UFO and the pilots’ union Vereinigung Cockpit (VC), Lufthansa said. Cabin crew union UFO said the strike notice was introduced after “the management has refused to enter into negotiations with us at all” regarding working conditions and pensions. UFO members working for regional subsidiary airline Lufthansa CityLine will be affected by the airline’s announced closure; operations and staff are expected to be relocated to a new subsidiary. VC said that pilots from both Lufthansa’s passenger and cargo operations will join the 24-hour strike after “a total of seven rounds of negotiations remained without a tangible result.” “We would have liked to avoid an escalation,” said VC President Andreas Pinheiro, blaming Lufthansa for the strike. According to the German news agency DW, the strike could affect all German airports, including the major international hubs of Frankfurt and Munich. The strike could disrupt the travel plans of thousands of passengers, including those traveling to the annual Munich Security Conference, which begins Friday.

BRUSSELS — A new EU rule mandating that a higher proportion of passengers pass through electronic identity border checks risks “wreaking significant discomfort on travelers,” warned the head of the bloc’s airport lobby. But a Commission spokesperson insisted that the electronic check system, which first went into limited use in October with a higher proportion of travelers to be checked from Friday, “has operated largely without issues.” The new Entry/Exit System is aimed at replacing passport stamps and cracking down on illegal stays in the bloc. Under the new system, travelers from third countries like the U.K. and the U.S. must register fingerprints and a facial image the first time they cross the frontier before reaching a border officer. But those extra steps are causing delays. In October, 10 percent of passengers had to use the new system; as of Friday, at least 35 percent of non-EU nationals entering the Schengen area for a short stay must use it. By April 10, the system will be fully in place. Its introduction last year caused issues at many airports, and industry worries that Friday’s step-up will cause a repeat. The EES “has resulted in border control processing times at airports increasing by up to 70 percent, with waiting times of up to three hours at peak traffic periods,” said Olivier Jankovec, director general of ACI Europe, adding that Friday’s new mandate is “sure to create even worse conditions.” Brussels Airport spokesperson Ihsane Chioua Lekhli said: “The introduction of EES has an impact on the waiting time for passengers and increases the need for sufficient staffing at border control,” adding: “Peak waiting times at arrival (entry of Belgium) can go up to three hours, and we also saw an increase of waiting times at departures.” But the Commission rejected the accusation that EES is wreaking havoc at EU airports. “Since its start, the system has operated largely without issues, even during the peak holiday period, and any initial challenges typical of new systems have been effectively addressed, moreover with it, we know who enter in the EU, when, and where,” said Markus Lammert, the European Commission’s spokesperson for internal affairs. Lamert said countries “have refuted the claim” made by ACI Europe of increased waiting times and that concerns over problems related to the new 35 percent threshold have been “disproven.” That’s in stark contrast with the view of the airport lobby, which pointed to recent problems in Portugal. Under the new system, travelers from third countries like the U.K. and the U.S. must register fingerprints and a facial image the first time they cross the frontier before reaching a border officer. | iStock “There are mounting operational issues with the EES rollout — the case in point being the suspension of the system by the Portuguese government over the holidays,” Jankovec said. In late December, the Portuguese government suspended the EES at Lisbon Humberto Delgado Airport for three months and deployed military personnel to bolster border control capabilities. ADR, which operates Rome Fiumicino Airport, is also seeing issues. “Operational conditions are proving highly complex, with a significant impact on passenger processing times at border controls,” ADR said in a written reply. Spain’s hotel industry association asked the country’s interior ministry to beef up staffing, warning of “recurring bottlenecks at border controls.” “It is unreasonable that, after a journey of several hours, tourists should face waits of an hour or more to enter the country,” said Jorge Marichal, the lobby’s president. The Spanish interior ministry said the EES is being used across the country with “no queues or significant incidents reported to date.” However, not all airports are having trouble implementing the new system. The ADP Group, which manages the two largest airports in Paris, said it has “not observed any chaos or increase in waiting times at this stage.”