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Tehran steps up warnings to US

"Our efforts to respond to Iran's nuclear program are focused on diplomacy. ... I think we've made it clear that what our intentions are, is to pursue this issue through diplomatic channels."

Tom Casey, US State Department spokesman

Iran stepped up its warnings to the US, with the nation's supreme leader saying Tehran will strike US interests around the world if his country is attacked.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's words on Thursday were also likely meant as a show of toughness to rally Iranians, who are increasingly worried about the possibility of US military action as the two countries' standoff has grown more tense.

Days earlier, an Iranian diplomat was detained in Iraq in an incident that Iran blamed on the US. The US denied any role and says it has no plans to strike Iran militarily, but has sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf to show strength in the face of rising Iranian regional influence.

But many in Iran say they fear attack. Iranian media and Web sites have almost daily commentaries on a possible US attack -- some of them blaming Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the deterioration in the already sour US-Iranian relations by his provocative rhetoric against the US and Israel.

Speaking to Iranian air force commanders, Khamenei said: ``The enemy knows well that any invasion would be followed by a comprehensive reaction to the invaders and their interests all over the world.'' His words were carried on state-run TV.

In Washington, US State Department spokesman Tom Casey, asked about the comments, said Washington's efforts on Iran focus on diplomacy. The two are in dispute over Iran's nuclear program and its role in Iraq.

``Our efforts to respond to Iran's nuclear program are focused on diplomacy. ... I think we've made it clear that what our intentions are, is to pursue this issue through diplomatic channels,'' Casey said.

Even as Iran's rhetoric has escalated, it has insisted it is open to a diplomatic solution to its standoff with the West. Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said on Wednesday he would meet European officials for talks on Iran's nuclear program during a security conference this weekend in Germany.

Tehran's ambassador to the UN, Javad Zarif, complained in a column published Thursday in the New York Times that the US was trying to make Iran a ``scapegoat'' for Washington's failures in the Mideast, particularly Iraq. He warned that efforts to isolate Iran would backfire on the US, increasing sectarian tensions in the region.

The US is reaping ``the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism'' in Iraq, he said.

``But rather than face these unpleasant facts, the United States administration is trying to sell an escalated version of the same failed policy. It does this by trying to make Iran its scapegoat and fabricating evidence of Iranian activities in Iraq,'' he said.

Zarif also made clear, however, that Iran wants to be part of a regional and international solution to calm Iraq, despite US rejection of the idea of seeking Iran's help.

Solving Iraq's problems requires ``prudence, dialogue and a genuine search for solutions,'' he wrote. ``Only through such regional cooperation, with the necessary international support, can we contain the current crisis and prevent future ones.''

Also on Thursday, Iran's intelligence minister said the government had detected a network of US and Israeli spies operating on its borders and had detained a group of Iranians who planned to go abroad for espionage training, state television reported.

But the minister, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, did not say whether any members of the US-Israeli network had been arrested nor provide any details on the Iranians.

Khamenei's words are not that unusual -- Iranian leaders often speak of a crushing response to any attack as a way to drum up domestic support.

But the rhetoric overall has escalated: two weeks ago, the official publication of the country's elite Revolutionary Guards,

Sobh-e-Sadegh, noted it would be easy to kidnap US citizens and transfer them to ``any location of choice'' in retaliation for any attack.

Many Iranians have said they fear an attack despite US denials of such a plan. US President George W. Bush has ordered US troops to act against Iranians suspected of being involved in the Iraqi insurgency, in addition to sending the second carrier to the region.
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