Official end of Iran if it attacks: Trump

US President Donald Trump has asked Iran "never to threaten" the US and warned Tehran that if it wants a fight, it would be "the official end" of the Islamic nation.

"If Iran wants to fight, that will be the official end of Iran," Trump tweeted on Sunday afternoon.

"Never threaten the United States again!"

His Sunday tweets appeared to be a considerable shift in tone from the President's brief remarks at the White House on May 16, when he responded "I hope not" after being asked whether the US and Iran were headed toward war, The

Washington Post reported. The White House has not officially responded to Trump's tweets.

Trump issued his threat a few hours after the commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, said on Sunday that Iran does not fear a war but the US does, reports Efe news.

Salami said in a speech at a military ceremony broadcast on state-run Iranian TV that Tehran was not seeking war but did not fear it either, in contrast to the US, which is afraid of war and does not have the willpower to engage in one.

He also warned that the entire Middle East could become "a powder keg" for Washington.

Last week, the US decided to deploy to the Persian Gulf the amphibious assault ship USS Arlington, Patriot missiles, the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and assorted warplanes, including bombers, after claiming that it had detected unspecified "indications" of Iranian plans to attack US forces in the Middle East.

In reply to Trump, Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Monday the "genocidal taunts" of US President Donald Trump will not "end Iran", amid a spike in tensions between the two countries.

"Iranians have stood tall for millennia while aggressors all gone. Economic terrorism and genocidal taunts won't 'end Iran'," Zarif wrote on Twitter.