Tehran, Nov 15 (IANS): Iran's Foreign Ministry has denied a media report about the recent killing of an Al Qaida leader in the capital Tehran.

On November 13, the New York Times reported that Al Qaida's second-in-command Muhammad al-Masri was killed by the Israeli operatives in Tehran in August, reports Xinhua news agency.

The newspaper report cited US intelligence officials as saying that al-Masri, accused of being one of the masterminds of two deadly 1998 attacks on American embassies in Africa, was gunned down by two assassins on motorcycles on August 7.

But in a statement on Saturday, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said that the story by the western media is a "scenario and fabricated information created by the US and Israel".

The western media report is "a false accusation" levelled by the US officials against Iran, and the Islamic republic "strongly denies the presence of terrorist members in the country", he added.

"In order to dodge responsibility for the criminal activities of this group and other terrorist groups in the region, Washington and Tel Aviv from time to time try to paint Iran as being tied to these groups through weaving lies and leaking fabricated information to the media."