Iran holds four 'UK-linked men' for killings - state TV

Iran says it has arrested four men allegedly paid by a man based in Britain to carry out assassinations, an official state TV station reports.

Press TV said the four "Britain-linked terrorists" were detained in the western city of Marivan.

The men are accused of carrying out five assassinations in the past two years for money, Press TV reports.

In London, the UK government dismissed the story as the latest in a line of "baseless Iranian allegations".

'Slur'

In a strongly worded statement, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) said the allegations were without foundation.

"The UK does not support or encourage terrorist activity in Iran, or anywhere else in the world and this claim will be seen as what it is: another in a long line of slurs against the United Kingdom from the Government of Iran," it said.

The Iranian report, which comes on the anniversary of the day in 1979 when Iranian militants seized the US embassy in the capital, Tehran, was published on the English language TV channel's website.

The four men are reported to have "confessed" to receiving orders while in the Iraqi city of Suleimaniya from a man Press TV named as Jalil Fattahi

The report said he was the group's commander, and was now living in the UK.

Although promised some $20,000 (£12,400) per killing, the arrested men only received less than half that sum, Press TV says.

"The ministry says it has disclosed documents and confiscated weaponry from the terrorist group," the report says.