The leader of Iran’s elite Quds Force stepped out of the shadows on Thursday to deliver a fiery speech against Donald Trump, warning the US president that if a war broke out Iran would “destroy all that you possess”.

General Qassem Soleimani, who heads the Revolutionary Guard’s expeditionary special forces, is considered of the most powerful figures in the Middle East and commands Iran’s operations in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen.

The general has been photographed on battlefields from Mosul to Aleppo and his image is plastered on billboards across Iran but he speaks only rarely in public.

On Thursday he delivered a blistering response to Mr Trump’s tweet on Monday, when the US president warned Iran that if it threatened America it would face “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered”.

“You know that this war will destroy all that you possess,” Gen Soleimani responded in a speech in the central city of Hamedan.

“You will start this war but we will be the ones to impose its end. Therefore you have to be careful about insulting the Iranian people and the president of our Republic.”