The U.S. is too scared to violate Iranian soil and wouldn’t dare initiate an attack, the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division said on Wednesday, according to the semi-official Mehr news agency.

U.S. President Donald Trump threatened on Tuesday to obliterate parts of Iran if it attacked “anything American”, but later left the door open for talks.

His words were met by this response from Brigadier General Amirali Hajizadeh, who was quoted by the Mehr news agency:

Neither America nor any other country would dare violate Iranian soil… the U.S. needs to know that Iran is not like any other countries in the region, and it will never be able to overcome Iran’s power, because we have made great advances in attaining new technologies and the U.S. cannot violate our territories even with its super modern drones.

Iranian military commanders have said the drone was shot down by a missile developed within the Islamic Republic.

In the last 48 hours the U.S. ramped up sanctions targeting eight senior commanders and the office of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The plan is for these sanctions to greatly limit Tehran’s financial resources.

President Hassan Rouhani said the actions proved the White House was “mentally retarded” while President Trump countered, saying the developments showed Iran’s leaders “do not understand reality.”