Press TV - The chief commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) says Iran will give a crushing response to any threat to its security even if it requires extraterritorial operations.

�Iran will never avoid giving response [to threats] beyond its borders if its security is put in danger,� Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari told Yemen�s al-Masirah TV on Friday.

General Jafari also referred to US President Donald Trump�s claim that his administration has decreased the Islamic Republic�s power, and said, �If in the past we could defend the Southwest Asia � in 12 minutes, we can do it now in a shorter time.�

The Iranian commander�s remarks came after Trump claimed on Tuesday Iran planned to take control of the Middle East in just �12 minutes.�

�Look at Iran, before I got there (to the White House), Iran was going to take (control) the Middle East in about 12 minutes, right?� Trump told his supporters in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

General Jafari further referred to US sanctions against Iran and said the Iranian nation has grown accustomed to such unilateral sanctions.

�Despite the sanctions, we have managed to achieve self-sufficiency and strengthen our national solidarity.�

The top commander made the comments a couple of weeks after the IRGC attacked the gathering�of the ringleaders of a recent terror attack in the southwestern Iranian city of Ahvaz with several surface-to-surface ballistic missiles in an area east of the Euphrates in Syria.

The strike took place on October 1 by the IRGC�s Aerospace Division, killing and injuring dozens of Takfiri terrorists and ringleaders of the September 22 attack, in which 25 people were killed and 69 others wounded.

Iran�s top general has stressed that the retaliatory attacks were just the first stage of Tehran�s revenge against those who sponsored and orchestrated the Ahvaz attack, for which Tehran holds �regional terror sponsors� and their �US masters� responsible.