Tehran's hardline Friday prayer leader, Ahmad Khatami, said the US would lose its economic and military campaign against Iran, Borna reported on September 4.

The sermon, delivered at Tehran's Grand Mosalla Mosque in the Abbasabad area of the city, restates the line that US sanctions "can be outlasted" through domestic mobilisation, a message the leadership has pressed as the rial weakens and Washington tightens financial pressure on the Islamic Republic.

Khatami said Washington's economic siege mirrored pressure faced in the early years of Islam and would end in the same failure, arguing that adversaries who spent to squeeze Iran would come to regret it.

"Economic pressure and siege is not a new matter that Trump has brought; rather, it has existed since the beginning of Islam." He added the Quran describes unbelievers spending to fight the faith, and that "in the end they will regret these expenditures, fail and be defeated."

He added the current confrontation was a hybrid war combining military and economic fronts, which has seen the rial drop to its lowest-ever exchange rate against all currencies, including the dollar.

The cleric set out two responses to US pressure: a struggle involving personal wealth, which he said could take military, economic, or cultural forms, and charitable giving, both financial and non-financial.

Khatami directed pointed language at US President Donald Trump, saying he did not understand the rules of war and questioning the guilt of what he said were 168 schoolchildren and athletes, referring to two missile strikes on a primary school in Minab and another strike in March on a women's volleyball team.

He said, The military war has its own rules, but Trump abides by no rules. What guilt do 168 schoolchildren have? Under all the laws of the world, children are protected. What guilt do athletes have? Why should you turn people's weddings into mourning? This war is dishonourable, but our armed forces give the highest and most chivalrous response to this dishonourable war."

The Iranian military, including the IRGC, remain on high alert for further US strikes, with the latest occurring on September 1 in a southern town by the Persian Gulf, where four people were killed, including a child.

US military continues to operate several bases in the region with the support of Gulf Arab allies and Israel; however, after recent counterattacks by Iran on Jordan and Bahrain, several military personnel were reportedly airlifted to Germany.