Iran condemns Trump as 'terrorist in a suit'

Iran condemned Donald Trump on Sunday as a "terrorist in a suit" after the US president threatened to hit 52 Iranian sites hard if Tehran attacks Americans or US assets in retaliation for the killing of military commander Qassem Soleimani.

As the two countries assailed each other in a war of words, the European Union, Britain and Oman urged both to make efforts to defuse the crisis.

Soleimani, Iran's pre-eminent military commander, was killed on Friday in a US drone strike on his convoy at Baghdad airport, an attack that took long-running hostilities between Washington and Tehran into uncharted territory and raised the specter of wider conflict in the Middle East.

Heightened fears of war drove Gulf stocks sharply lower on Sunday.

Hundreds of thousands of mourners, many chanting, beating their chests and wailing in grief, turned out across Iran to show their respects after Soleimani's body was returned home to a hero's welcome.

"Like ISIS, Like Hitler, Like Genghis! They all hate cultures. Trump is a terrorist in a suit. He will learn history very soon that NOBODY can defeat 'the Great Iranian Nation & Culture'," Information and Telecommunications Minister Mohammad Javad Azari-Jahromi tweeted.