TEL AVIV, March 6-- Israel has strong evidence that Iran links to the rockets-carrying cargo ship seized by Israeli naval forces in the Red Sea, the country's military intelligence said on Thursday.

"A slew of our intelligence units spent many months piecing together the puzzle regarding the arms smuggling. We are equipped with good, solid evidence that incriminates Iran and reinforces its connection to the affair," said Major General Aviv Kochavi, head of Israel's military intelligence.

But Kochavi declined to comment on the initial information that led Israel to begin monitoring the arms shipment, or how it was received.

Iran on Thursday flatly rejected the Israeli allegations.

"This allegation is not true and, in principle, the message or movement of a ship carrying weapons from Iran to Gaza is not true, " said Amir Abdollahian, Iran's deputy foreign minister for Arab and African Affairs. He said that "the allegation is merely based on repetitious and baseless fabrications of the Zionist media."

Israeli Navy on Tuesday raided the Panamanian-flagged Klos C on the maritime border of Sudan and Eritrea, some 1,500 km from Israel's shores. A search of the cargo found Iran-made M-302 long- range rockets and other munitions.