World / Middle East Iranian military chief tells Trump: ‘If you begin the war, we will end it’ BL PREMIUM

Ankara — An Iranian military commander said on Thursday Donald Trump should address any threats against Tehran directly to him, and mocked the US president as using the language of "nightclubs and gambling halls". The comments by Maj-Gen Qassem Suleimani, who heads the Quds Force of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, 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. 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. 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 th...