New CIA base in the occupied part of Cyprus

CIA and Turkey’s MIT planning secret air base to monitor the Middle East

To keep a closer eye on the Middle East, the US and Turkey’s foreign intelligence services are planning to collaborate more closely from the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The CIA is on a mission to acquire, through brokers, unmarked C-130 transport aircraft to carry out covert operations.

Grégory Priolon, Théo Sou
Dec 8, 2025

Featured Image: Aerial view from inside a C-130 Hercules. The CIA is trying to discreetly acquire this type of aircraft to operate in the Middle East. © Ida Marie Odgaard/Ritzau Scanpix via AFP

The CIA is on the hunt to buy a dozen second hand and unmarked C-130 Hercules aircraft, so that they cannot be identified, Intelligence Online has learned. These military transport aircraft, built by Lockheed Martin, are often modified to enable their use for clandestine intelligence operations, such as those carried out by the French foreign intelligence service DGSE‘s GAM-56 air squadron (IO, 01/07/25).

The CIA’s interest in acquiring unmarked C-130 Hercules is primarily strategic. This popular, robust aircraft is widely used. Its aircraft registration can be easily concealed among operational fleets of second-hand civil aircraft, thus providing credible cover for special operations.

Operations in the Med

Once equipped with a fleet of these aircraft, the CIA intends to keep them at Turkey’s base in Geçitkale, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The Turkish army permanently deploys some of its Bayraktar TB2 drones there to protect exploration vessels used in Ankara’s oil and gas projects in the eastern Mediterranean.

The American agency’s plan is to establish a discreet air base in the Mediterranean for its clandestine operations. In partnership with Turkey’s MIT foreign intelligence service, the CIA wants to maintain a covert striking force close to Lebanon and especially Syria, where the MIT is already very active on the ground (IO, 20/10/25 and 16/12/24).

The CIA’s Air Branch, which is the aerial component of the Directorate of Operations, historically linked to the Special Activities Centre (SAC), is at the heart of the operation, for which it would discreetly deploy teams of operators, interception sensors (SIGINT) and sensitive cargo. The unit does not operate like a conventional military squadron, rather it relies on modified aircraft, operated through front companies and crews of contract pilots bound by secrecy.

The aircraft the CIA is looking to buy must have a sufficient cargo capacity to transport personnel and specialised intelligence payloads, ranging from optronic balls to hardened airborne communications relays, to equipment for paratroopers on discreet High Altitude, Low Opening (HALO) operations.
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