President Donald Trump says the US will be hitting Iran “very hard over the next week”, describing the regime’s leaders as “deranged scumbags” who it was “a great honour to kill”.

In a message foreshadowing further intensification of the war, Trump vowed to use America’s “unparalleled firepower”.

He said the US was “totally destroying the terrorist ‌regime of Iran”.

“We have unparalleled firepower, unlimited ammunition, and plenty of time — Watch what happens to these deranged scumbags today,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

“They’ve been killing innocent people all over the world for 47 years, and now I, as the 47th President of the United States of America, am killing them. What a great honour it is to do ‌so!”

Trump’s Secretary of War Pete Hegseth warned that the coming week would see the “highest volume of strikes that America has put over the skies of Iran”.

After nearly two weeks of war, 2000 people have been killed, most of them in Iran, but many also in Lebanon and a growing number in the Gulf, which has for the first time in decades of Middle East conflicts found itself on the front line.

Several million people have been displaced from their homes.

Meanwhile, Hegseth said Iran’s new Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was wounded and ‌likely disfigured and questioned Khamenei’s ability to govern.

“We know the new so-called ​not so supreme leader is wounded and likely disfigured. He put out a statement yesterday.

“A weak one, actually, but there was no voice and there was no video. It was a written statement,” Hegseth told a briefing.

“Iran has plenty of cameras and plenty of voice recorders. Why a written ⁠statement? I think you know why. His father – dead. ‌He’s ​scared, he’s injured, he’s on the run and he lacks legitimacy.”

An Iranian official told Reuters on ​Wednesday that the newly ‌appointed supreme leader was lightly injured but was continuing to operate, after state television ​described him as war-wounded.

Hegseth was joined by General Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a briefing in which they emphasised US military strikes to knock ​out ​Iran’s missile and drone capabilities and its ​navy.

But despite the US attacks on Iran, ‌more Iranian drones were reported flying into Kuwait, Iraq, the UAE, Bahrain and Oman.

Additionally, four US service members were killed on Friday when a US military refueling aircraft crashed in western Iraq, in an incident the US said involved another aircraft but was not the result of hostile or friendly ​fire.

The ‌deaths add ⁠to the seven US service members who ​have already been killed as part of US operations against Iran.

“The circumstances of the incident are under investigation. However, the loss of the aircraft was not due to hostile fire or friendly fire,” ⁠a statement from US ‌Central ​Command said on Friday.

The United States has deployed a large number of ​aircraft into the ‌Middle East to take part in operations against Iran and the ​incident highlights the risk of not just operations, but of refuelling aircraft in the air.

The Islamic Resistance in ​Iraq, ​an umbrella group ​of Iran-backed armed factions, claimed responsibility for ‌downing the US military refuelling aircraft.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that as many as 150 US troops have been wounded in the US-Israeli war on Iran.

News of the crash comes the ​same day two US sailors were injured after USS ​Gerald Ford suffered ⁠a non-combat-related fire on board.

-with AAP