Iran’s Threat to Europe: Why Tehran Is Targeting NATO Bases and Hormuz Undersea Cables

Specifically, the Iranian assessments highlight Bezmer Air Base after Sofia authorised U.S. military aircraft to use it for refuelling operations. They also focus on RAF Akrotiri, the British sovereign base area on Cyprus that was targeted by a drone attack in March.

The distinction between the two is politically important.

Bezmer is located in a NATO member state and therefore places the question of alliance security directly into the equation. Akrotiri is part of the UK's sovereign base territory, giving London and Washington a different legal and operational relationship with the site. Cyprus, meanwhile, is not a NATO member.

Nicosia has moved quickly to distance itself from the prospect of becoming a party to the confrontation. Government sources told Cyprus Mail that Cyprus is not an Iranian target, pointing to diplomatic channels with Tehran and stressing that the republic does not allow its territory to be used for strikes against Iran. Operations from the British bases are a matter for Britain and the US.

That reassurance may calm immediate concerns, but it cannot remove the underlying strategic problem. European territory can become exposed to a Middle Eastern conflict without European governments having much influence over the decisions that trigger escalation.

That is precisely what makes the threat useful to Tehran.

The real weapon may be political

Iran has a limited ability to impose costs on Europe through conventional military power at long range. Its medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles have demonstrated significant reach, but their effectiveness falls as range increases, particularly in accuracy and usable payload.

That makes a direct missile campaign against southeastern Europe a less attractive option than the headline numbers might imply.

Iran has other tools.

Analysts cited in the briefing assess that Tehran is more likely to rely on proxy groups, clandestine IRGC intelligence networks and forms of sabotage than on sustained long-range missile attacks against NATO territory. The distinction matters because these methods occupy the space between peace and open warfare. They can impose costs while preserving ambiguity, complicating attribution and forcing governments to decide how far they are prepared to escalate in response.

Iran's intelligence footprint in southern Europe is not a hypothetical construct. In June, more than 20 countries, including the US, UK, Bulgaria, France, Germany and the Baltic states, jointly condemned espionage and lethal plotting attributed to IRGC intelligence and the Quds Force across Europe. The activities cited included operations involving dissidents and defence-related infrastructure.

The Eastern Mediterranean has therefore become relevant to Iranian security planning well beyond its geography. RAF Akrotiri, Souda Bay in Crete, Paphos Airfield and Incirlik in Turkey have appeared in the context of Iranian intelligence activity and military targeting.

The threat is consequently not confined to what Iran can destroy from a distance. It also concerns what networks operating closer to European infrastructure might be able to disrupt, damage or intimidate.

Why cables may matter more than airfields

The most revealing element of the reported contingency planning may be the inclusion of undersea fibre-optic cables.

The Strait of Hormuz is not simply a passage for energy. It also contains major submarine communications routes carrying dense digital traffic between Asia, the Middle East and Europe. A vulnerability in that corridor gives Tehran a potential lever against infrastructure whose strategic importance is much larger than its physical location.

This is classic asymmetric logic. A military power does not need to defeat an adversary's armed forces if it can create uncertainty around the systems on which modern economies depend.

An attack or serious disruption affecting communications infrastructure could have consequences well beyond Iran's immediate confrontation with the US. It could raise questions about data resilience, alternative routes and the vulnerability of Europe's wider digital economy.

The search for alternatives is already part of the infrastructure debate, with projects such as the FIG route between Oman, Iraq, Turkey and Europe intended to provide additional connectivity. The existence of such alternatives does not eliminate the vulnerability of individual maritime choke points, but it illustrates why telecommunications infrastructure is increasingly treated as a strategic asset rather than merely a commercial utility.

For Tehran, the attraction is obvious: the target is physically distant from European capitals but economically and digitally connected to them.

A message aimed at European decision-makers

The timing of the leak is as important as its military content.

Since Donald Trump's return to the White House, Washington has renewed its maximum-pressure policy towards Iran. In March, the US established a red line around the Strait of Hormuz and threatened strikes on Iranian power facilities if transit were obstructed. Iranian officials responded by warning that European assistance to US operations would be treated as an act of war.

The latest reported assessments fit that pattern.

By allowing details of possible targets to emerge through regime-linked sources, Tehran can communicate a warning without publicly committing itself to an attack. The message is effectively directed at two audiences at once: Washington is reminded that escalation can widen, while European capitals are reminded that they may bear some of the costs.

That creates an uncomfortable strategic asymmetry.

European governments can object to a US decision without controlling it. Yet their territory, bases, infrastructure and commercial networks can still become exposed to the consequences.

For Bulgaria, Cyprus and other states on Europe's southern and eastern periphery, the problem is particularly acute. Their proximity to the Mediterranean and Black Sea security environment gives them strategic importance to Washington and NATO, while their ability to determine US policy towards Iran remains limited.

Hardliners and the logic of escalation

The reported contingency planning also comes as power in Tehran increasingly shifts towards hardline figures, including Mohsen Rezaei.

That does not mean every scenario considered by Iranian military planners will be executed. Military planning routinely includes options that never become policy. But a harder political environment can change the value placed on escalation, deniability, and the ability to threaten several theatres simultaneously.

Iran's most useful advantage is not necessarily the ability to strike every target it names.

It is the ability to make adversaries believe that they cannot fully protect all of them at once.

That is where the European dimension becomes strategically significant. NATO can defend its members against conventional attack, and its public position remains that the alliance is prepared to counter threats against its allies. But defending European territory against missiles is a different problem from protecting undersea cables, commercial infrastructure and dispersed facilities against clandestine sabotage.

The latter requires intelligence, surveillance, resilience and political coordination across borders - precisely the areas in which ambiguity creates the greatest friction.

The alliance dilemma

For NATO, the danger is therefore not simply that Iran might attack a European facility. It is that Tehran can exploit the gap between European risk and American decision-making.

A Bulgarian airbase used by US aircraft can become an Iranian pressure point. A British facility on Cyprus can become another. A communications corridor in the Gulf can expose European economies to disruption. Each target belongs to a different political and legal category, but all can feed the same strategic objective: raise the perceived price of escalation.

That puts European governments in a difficult position. If Washington increases military pressure, European allies may have to reinforce security around facilities and infrastructure that could become targets. If European capitals seek restraint, Tehran can interpret that pressure as evidence that its coercive strategy is working.

The choice is not between war and peace in the conventional sense. It is increasingly between different levels of exposure to a conflict that is geographically centred elsewhere.

The most consequential part of Tehran's reported planning may therefore be the uncertainty it creates before any missile is fired or cable is cut. Europe is being drawn into the strategic calculations of a confrontation it does not control, while the line between military targets and civilian infrastructure becomes harder to maintain.