Iran has ordered that Syria provide Hizbullah with advanced weapons; Israel will do all in its power to stop this transfer of weapons, the Israeli prime minister said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied reports in the media on Monday of alleged Israeli forces operating in Syria.

Iran's Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant has suffered a malfunction in its main generator, the Islamic Republic's ambassador to Moscow said on Monday.

Mahmoud Reza Sadjadi did not specify the nature of the malfunction or make clear whether it has caused the plant's shutdown, Russia's state Itar-TASS news agency reported.

Iran on Sunday took a "major step forward" at its under-construction heavy water reactor in the central town of Arak by installing the reactor vessel at the site, media reports said.

The development comes in spite of numerous rounds of U.N. and Western sanctions designed at cutting off Iran's access to nuclear technology.

Iran elects on Friday a successor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whose eight years in office have been marked by stiff Western sanctions over Tehran's controversial nuclear drive and the economic turmoil they have caused.

When Ahmadinejad was re-elected for a second term in 2009, widespread charges of voter fraud sparked massive street protests.

Iran on Saturday condemned a deadly attack the day before in neighboring Iraq, in which at least 14 Iranian Shiite pilgrims were killed, the official IRNA news agency said.

"Iran condemns this indiscriminate terrorist act, which is contrary to Islamic and human values," it cited foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Araqchi as saying.

Six world powers engaged in stalled talks with Iran over its nuclear programme said Wednesday it was "essential and urgent" Tehran cooperates with the U.N. atomic agency over allegations of bomb research.

The U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany also said they were "deeply concerned" by Iran's continued expansion of its nuclear program despite U.N. Security Council resolutions calling for a suspension.

Army units on Tuesday launched a crackdown on gunmen in Jabal Mohsen and started removing barricades and sandbags from the Tripoli neighborhood, ahead of taking the same measures in the adjacent districts.

Abdul Latif Saleh, spokesman for the Arab Democratic Party, the main political and military force in Jabal Mohsen, welcomed the step but demanded a similar crackdown in the rival neighborhood of Bab al-Tabbaneh.

Iran may have removed all evidence of alleged nuclear weapons research at its Parchin military base, the head of the U.N. atomic agency said Monday.

"As our verification capacity has been negatively impacted because of the extensive activities by Iran (at Parchin), it may no longer be possible to find anything even if we have access," Yukiya Amano of the International Atomic Energy Agency told reporters in Vienna.

Iran has dismantled a "terror network" backed by Israel's Mossad intelligence services which planned to disrupt the upcoming presidential election in the Islamic republic, the state broadcaster said on Sunday.

"The intelligence ministry has identified and arrested the members of this terror network, and confiscated their weapons," IRIB said on its website, quoting a statement by the ministry.

Security forces arrested several supporters of moderate presidential candidate Hassan Rowhani in Iran's June 14 election after pictures of detained opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi were displayed at a meeting, websites reported Sunday.

Opposition website Kaleme.com reported seven arrests of participants in a ceremony in the Jamaran mosque in northern Tehran on Saturday, with relatives saying "they were taken to Tehran's Evin prison.”