TEHRAN — U.S. President Donald Trump is being pushed toward a war with Iran by “the habitual liar”, says Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

“The habitual liar bamboozled @realdonaldtrump into assassinating ISIS' enemy #1 by raising a false alarm,” Zarif tweeted on Tuesday, pointing to U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

“Now he's trying to sucker him into mother of all quagmires by leaking a new false alarm,” he said. “Time to wake up.”

It came hours after Trump threatened Iran with a “1,000 times greater” attack in response to a cooked-up Politico report which claimed Iran is planning to assassinate the U.S. ambassador to South Africa.

“According to press reports, Iran may be planning an assassination, or another attack, against the United States in retaliation for the killing of terrorist leader Soleimani, which was carried out for his planning a future attack, murdering U.S. Troops, and the death & suffering caused over so many years,” Trump wrote in his Twitter page, pointing to the U.S. assassination of Iran’s anti-terror commander Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani on January 3.

“Any attack by Iran, in any form, against the United States will be met with an attack on Iran that will be 1,000 times greater in magnitude!” Trump added.

The Politico story, which was published on Sunday, claimed that the Iranian government is weighing an assassination attempt against U.S. Ambassador to South Africa Lana Marks to avenge the Trump-ordered assassination of General Soleimani.

Iran has strongly rejected the accusation, calling the report “customer-made, biased and purposeful”.

Noting that Politico has tried to portray its claim as real by referring to the remarks of an “apparent American official”, Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said in a Monday statement that “we advise the United States’ officials to stop resorting to repeated and decayed methods to create anti-Iran commotion at the international arena.”

MH/PA