'Be careful not to be eliminated': Iran issues chilling warning to Donald Trump

The regime's chilling warning came after Mr Trump said he was unhappy with the appointment of Mojtaba Khamenei, 56, claiming the new leader could not "live in peace".

He went on to tell the Gulf nation to brace for "death, fire and fury" for keeping the Strait of Hormuz shut, a move which had skyrocketed global gas and oil prices.

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But the American leader's comments were dismissed by Iran's security chief Ali Larijani, who said the country's Islamic rulers were "not afraid of your empty threats".

He added: "Even those greater than you could not eliminate the Iranian nation. Take care of yourself not to be eliminated!"

US defence secretary Pete Hegseth repeated Mr Trump's threats to Iran in a press conference on Tuesday, telling reporters the next attacks on Iran will be their "most intense" since the conflict began.

President Trump said Iran would be hit "20 times harder" if it keeps blocking exports in the Strait of Hormuz - a key route which handles a fifth of the world's oil trade.

Directly referring to Mr Trump's Truth Social post yesterday, Mr Hegseth said: "You've seen the Truth and read it. But he takes very seriously the condition of the straits."

Giving an update on the war in Iran from the Pentagon, Mr Hegseth added that the US "will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated".

"But we do so on our timeline and at our choosing," he said.

"We are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives, which are the same as the day I gave my first briefing here on Operation Epic Fury."

Mr Trump was the target of an assassination attempt by a Pakistani man with ties to Iran during the 2024 presidential race.

Asif Merchant, a Pakistani national who was trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was found guilty of the assassination plot on Saturday.

During Mr Trump's campaign, he was warned by national security officials that Iran was targeting him and had infiltrated the US with multiple kill teams.

Their aim was to take revenge for the or the killing of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani during Mr Trump's first term in 2020, the Department of Justice said.

Merchant arrived in the US from Pakistan in April 2024 after having spent time in Iran.

He met various US law enforcement officers, who posed at hitmen, in New York before contacting Nadeem Ali, who he believed could help with the assassination.

However, he was reported to the police.

At trial, Merchant admitted that the IRGC sent him to the US to arrange for political assassinations and that his IRGC handler directed him to kill Trump.

The leader of the plot was killed in recent strikes, Mr Hegseth claimed.

The US leader had also previously warned Iran their Supreme Leader would "not last long if he doesn't get approval from us".

"We want to make sure that we don’t have to go back every 10 years, when you don’t have a president like me that’s not going to do it," he added.

Mojtaba, the second son of the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was appointed Iran's supreme leader by the regime's 88-person assembly.

He has close ties to the brutal IRGC and is viewed as even more extremist than his father.

According to Iranian state TV, he has already been wounded, having been marked for assassination by Israel after it vowed to "eliminate" whoever succeeded the Ayatollah.

Asked about the status of Mojtaba, Mr Hegseth refused to comment, but said the new leader "would be wise to heed" Donald Trump's warning to Iran against pursuing nuclear weapons.

The defence secretary added that there is "strong evidence of degradation" of Iran's capabilities, with attack trend lines going "down to a flat".

Trump is under pressure after his attack on Iran spiked oil prices, igniting fears of a global economic crisis.

Tehran has claimed not "one litre of oil" would be shipped from the Middle East if attacks from the US and Israel continued.

"We are the ones who will determine the end of the war," a spokesperson said.

The president warned that US attacks would rise sharply if Iran blocked tankers through the Strait.

He also predicted the conflict would end well before the initial four-week time frame he had laid out, but did not specify what victory would look like.

In a Truth Social post, Trump repeated his warning of further attacks: "If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have ​been hit thus far."

But Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said Iran was unlikely to resume negotiations with the US.

"After three rounds of negotiation, the American team in ​the negotiation said itself that we made a big progress. Still, they decided to attack us. So, I don't think talking to the Americans anymore would be on our agenda any more," he said in an interview with PBS.

He added: "We are well prepared to continue attacking them with our missiles as long as needed and as long as it takes."