Iran Says It Has Cracked an Israeli Spy Ring

JERUSALEM -- Iran says it has broken up an Israeli spy ring and captured an agent who helped assassinate an Iranian nuclear scientist last year, raising tensions between the two countries even further. Iran's foreign minister today said Tehran will bring Israel to justice for "crimes against humanity and our scientists."

The alleged Mossad agent was paraded on Iranian TV's English broadcast Monday night and shown on Israel TV's Channel 2. The suspect's name was not given, but he appeared to be in his early 30s. He said he traveled to Israel, where he met with his Israeli handlers. He described landing at Ben-Gurion Airport, where an official became suspicious that he did not speak Hebrew.

"At that moment, the person who was responsible for me came into the picture. He presented a card, took my passport and we exited through a different way," he said. "We left Tel Aviv on the highway to Jerusalem, and about 30 minutes later we reached the Mossad headquarters."

He also described the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientist Masoud Ali Mohammadi, one of the heads of the Iranian nuclear program, who was killed a year ago.

"We booby-trapped a car near his home which killed him," he told the Iranian interviewer, adding that the Mossad "trained me how to do surveillance, to shake off someone following me and how to attach a bomb under a car."

Since Mohammadi's death, another Iranian nuclear scientist was killed and a third seriously wounded in two simultaneous attacks in November. Iran accused the Mossad, the CIA and the British MI6 of involvement.

Israeli officials declined to comment.

Iranian officials said the man was one of "more than 10" in a network of Israeli spies who had been arrested recently.

"We will definitely utilize all our means and capabilities to follow up the case in international legal bodies," Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, said today. "The issue that we will actively pursue is the condemnation of this illegal regime [Israel] and its punishment as the perpetrator of crimes against humanity and our scientists."

Israel has repeatedly said that Iran is working to develop a nuclear bomb that could be used against Israel or moderate Arab states. Iran insists its nuclear program is solely for peaceful purposes. In recent months, Iran has suffered a series of setbacks in addition to the killing of the Iranian scientists. Notably, it has had trouble maintaining it centrifuges used to enrich uranium.

Outgoing Mossad chief Meir Dagan made headlines here last week when he said it is unlikely that Iran will be able to produce a nuclear weapon before 2015, significantly later than past Israeli estimates.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, attributed the slowdown to U.S.-led sanctions.

"Iran has had technical problems that have made it slow down its timetable," she said. "The sanctions are working. Their program, from our best estimate, has been slowed down."