An Iranian military commander says Donald Trump should address any threats against Tehran directly to him and mocked the US president for using the language of "nightclubs and gambling halls".
The comments by Major-General Qassem Soleimani, who heads the Quds Force of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards Corps, were the latest salvo in a war of words between the two countries.
"As a soldier, it is my duty to respond to Trump's threats. If he wants to use the language of threat, he should talk to me, not to the president [Hassan Rouhani]," Soleimani was quoted as saying by the Iranian Young Journalists' Club.
Coming a day after Rouhani said there was no need for him to "respond to any nonsensical comment", Soleimani's message was in essence a warning to the US to stop threatening Iran with war or risk exposing itself to an Iranian response.
"We are near you, where you can't even imagine ... Come. We are ready to confront you. If you begin the war, we will end the war," Tasnim news agency quoted Soleimani as saying.
On Sunday night, Trump said in a tweet directed at Rouhani: "Never, ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer a country that will stand for your demented words of violence & death. Be cautious!"
"You [Trump] threaten us with paying a price like few countries have ever paid. Trump, this is the language of night clubs and gambling halls," Soleimani said.
Since Trump's decision in May to withdraw the United States from a 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and world powers, Tehran's clerical establishment has been under increasing US pressure and the prospect of possible sanctions.
