Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi Wednesday categorically rejected US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's recent allegation that Iran was involved in Tuesday's bombing attack in Israel.

"Rumsfeld's remarks are aimed at spreading lies to justify US defeat in the campaign against terrorism," the official IRNA news agency quoted Asefi as saying in a statement.

Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that Iran could have played a role in the suicide attack at a shopping mall in Israel's coastal city of Netanya, which has killed four Israeli women and injured 90 others.

Asefi rejected the remarks and refuted that the repetition of US miscalculated and unwise measures in the fight against terrorism only increase insecurity in the world.

Media reports said that the Tuesday attack in Israel was claimed by an armed wing of Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, which has been involved in many of the recent violence against Israeli targets.

Source: Xinhua