Iranian leader threatens broad retaliation if attacked

TEHRAN, Iran -- Iran's supreme leader said today that if the United States were to attack Iran, the country would respond by striking U.S. interests all over the world -- the latest sharp exchange in an escalating standoff between the two countries.

The comments by Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei came on the same day that another top official, Tehran's ambassador to the United Nations, Javad Zarif, warned in a column in The New York Times that efforts to isolate Iran would backfire on the United States, increasing sectarian tensions in the volatile Middle East, including Iraq. The United States is reaping "the expected bitter fruits of its ill-conceived adventurism," 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.

The United States and Iran have been in an increasingly tense standoff over Tehran's nuclear program. The tensions have worsened recently because of U.S. allegations of Iranian influence in Iraq. The United States has denied it has any plans to strike Iran militarily but has sent an additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf in what U.S. officials call an effort to show strength in the face of rising Iranian regional influence.

Speaking to a gathering of 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." In another sign of the tensions, Iran's intelligence minister also said the government had detected a network of U.S and Israeli spies, and had detained a second group of people who planned to go abroad for espionage training, state television reported. It gave few details.

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