TEHRAN, Feb 8: Iran’s intelligence minister said on Thursday the government had detected a network of US and Israeli spies, and detained a second group of people who planned to go abroad for espionage training, state television reported.

But Minister Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi did not say if any members of the US-Israeli network had been arrested, nor did he say who the would-be spies would have worked for.

The TV newscaster quoted the minister as telling a group of clerics in the holy city of Qom, 120 kilometres south of Tehran, that the first group of spies were “agents of the CIA and Mossad espionage services”.

“This group was detected and they are in our intelligence net,” he said of the spies, implying that they were under surveillance.

The minister said the network had been active along the Iranian border, but did not say which border. Iran has frontiers with Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.

Referring to the second group, he said the government had detained some Iranians who planned to go abroad to attend a training course in espionage.

He did not say how many people were detained nor which country would have trained and employed them.

The minister’s remarks came at a time of heightened tension between Iran and the international community, led by the United States.

US President George W. Bush has ordered American troops to act against Iranians suspected of being involved in the Iraqi insurgency and has deployed a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf area as a warning to Iran.

The UN Security Council has imposed sanctions because of Iran’s refusal to cease uranium enrichment, and is due to consider strengthening later this month.—AP