US denies involvement in Iran blast

The United States on Tuesday moved to dismiss any links to a bomb attack in the Iranian capital of Tehran that killed a nuclear scientist.

“Charges of US involvement are absurd,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner said.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry earlier accused the US and Israel of having played a role in the assassination of Professor Massoud Ali-Mohammadi, who was killed by a booby-trapped motorbike blast.

“Primary investigations into the assassination revealed signs of the involvement of the Zionist regime [Israel], the US and their allies in Iran,” spokesman Ramin Mehman-Parast said.

The White House also reacted to the remarks.

“Those accusations are absurd. I saw that’s what the State Department put out today and it’s about right,” White House deputy spokesman Bill Burton said.

Meanwhile, a terrorist group, whose radio station broadcasts from the United States, took responsibility for the fatal attack.

The Iran Royal Association, an obscure monarchist group that seeks to reestablish the Pahlavi reign in Iran, announced in a statement that its “Tondar Commandos” were behind the assassination of Ali-Mohammadi.

The Iran Royal Association, headed by Foroud Fouladvand, is responsible for a deadly bombing in the southern city of Shiraz back in April 2008, in which 13 people were killed and hundreds were wounded.