Leaders of the Taliban dared President Trump to bring it on after he vowed the day before to defeat them on the battlefield — charging that his approach to the war was no different that Presidents Obama or George W. Bush, a new report said Tuesday.

“We know how to defend our motherland,” one of the terror group’s commanders told NBC News.

“If we could fight this war for 16 years with limited resources against the world’s well-equipped armies, we are happy to continue this fight against the enemy.”

The Taliban had called on its supporters for prayers that Trump would announce a complete US military withdrawal, a course of action that seemed possible given his repeated attacks on the US presence in Afghanistan as a candidate.

But Trump said Monday night that he had decided against a quick withdrawal after lengthy discussions with his top military advisers.

“President Trump also failed to understand Afghanistan and the problems there,” another senior Taliban commander told the network.

“We thought him different from his predecessors, but like other US presidents, he too succumbed to the pressure and misinformation of his military commanders and succeeded in wasting their human lives and resources in Afghanistan,” the commander added after watching Trump’s speech in Afghanistan’s Helmand province — a militant stronghold.

The Taliban also issued an official statement that warned that if the US didn’t leave, its fighters would “make this country the 21st century graveyard for the American empire.”

Trump also had harsh words for Pakistan, a nominal US ally that he said had provided safe harbors for terrorists — including Osama bin Laden.

“We can no longer be silent about Pakistan’s safe havens for terrorist organizations, the Taliban, and other groups that pose a threat to the region and beyond,” he said.

“Pakistan has much to gain from partnering with our effort in Afghanistan. It has much to lose by continuing to harbor terrorists.

Pakistan reacted angrily.

“President Trump is banking on a tried, tested and failed strategy,” said Mushahid Hussain, a senator in the Pakistani legislature and chairman of the country’s Senate Defense Committee.

Hussain said Obama’s “surge” of 100,000 troops didn’t work in 2009, and questioned why Trump would believe that adding a few thousand more troops to the roughly 8.400 there already would make any difference.

“For the first time since he became President, Mr. Trump seems to have embraced the traditional Washington/American establishment playbook on Afghanistan,” he said, according to NBC.

“I was hoping he’d make new mistakes, rather than repeat old ones!”

While Pakistan was angry, Trump actually resisted some advisers’ calls to threaten to declare Pakistan a state sponsor of terrorism unless Islamabad pursued senior leaders of the Afghan Taliban and the allied Haqqani network.

“Pakistan should not be reassured by this speech, but it could have gone a lot worse for them,” said Joshua White, a National Security Council director under Barack Obama.

“There were voices within the administration who wanted to move more quickly and aggressively to declare Pakistan not just a problem, but effectively an enemy.”

Trump’s call for India to play a greater role in Afghanistan would also alarm Pakistan’s generals, analysts said.

“Trump’s policy of engaging India and threatening action may actually constrain Pakistan and lead to the opposite of what he wants,” said Zahid Hussain, a Pakistani security analyst.

The Pakistani government said Foreign Minister Khawaja Asif met with the US ambassador on Tuesday, and in coming days would speak with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “on the state of play in the bilateral relationship as well as the new US policy on South Asia.”

And China on Tuesday defended Pakistan after Trump’s remarks, saying its neighbor was on the front line in the struggle against terrorism and had made “great sacrifices” and “important contributions” in the fight.

With Reuters