TEHRAN - Iran warned neighboring countries not to help its arch-foe Israel, one day after announcing it had rounded up a spy ring linked to Israel which it said had assassinated an Iranian nuclear scientist. Israel has not ruled out military strikes on the Islamic Republic if diplomatic efforts fail to stop Tehran trying to build nuclear weapons. Iran has vowed to retaliate with missile strikes on Israel and U.S. targets in the Gulf. "Our neighbors and the regional countries that have ties with the Zionist regime should know that any assistance given to this regime would be viewed as a threat to Iran," Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi told a rare news conference on Tuesday. "The regional countries' interaction with this regime will help the creation of bases for terrorist and espionage actions." Iran said on Monday it had arrested a "network of spies" linked to Israel's Mossad intelligence service which it blamed for the assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist in 2010. "The arrested cluster includes many networks ... so far, over 10 people connected to various networks have been arrested and arrests will continue," Moslehi said. "They were all members of networks linked to Mossad." A remote-controlled bomb killed Tehran University scientist Masoud Ali-Mohammadi in Tehran on January 12 last year. Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the killing, a charge Washington rejected as "absurd". Western sources have said Ali-Mohammadi, a physics professor, worked closely with Mohsen Fakhrizadeh-Mahabadi and Fereydoun Abbassi-Davani, named in U.N. sanctions resolutions because of their work on suspected nuclear weapons development. Another Iranian nuclear scientist was killed on November 29.
