Iran accuses Israel of trying to "sabotage" its missile industry

Iran claimed to have foiled a "very complex" project by Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence agency, to "sabotage" its ballistic missile industry.

The defence ministry's intelligence service uncovered "a very professional network" with agents "infiltrated" into the country, which "planned to introduce defective parts into the missile production process", the Irna news agency quoted a ministry official as saying.

The group tried to "place an undetectable circuit in some parts of the missile's connector to cause it to explode at a specific time", said Deputy Defence Minister Mehdi Farahi.

According to Farahi, the aim was to "inflict a setback" on Iran's ambitious ballistic missile programme, which has been under development for years and has been denounced by Israel and the United States.

"Despite this very complex project" carried out by "the Mossad", the sabotage attempt "was monitored from the beginning and completely neutralised with the arrest of members of the network", Farahi added, without giving the names or nationalities of the detainees.

"Until now, the Zionist enemy was totally convinced that the industrial sabotage project [was] going to be a success," he added.

Israel accuses Iran of wanting to equip itself with an atomic bomb.

Tehran regularly announces that it has thwarted bombing and sabotage attempts by Israel, but Israel never comments on such reports.

In February, Iran accused Israel of being behind a drone attack on a military facility in Isfahan in central Iran.