Iran has issued a direct warning to Donald Trump after the US leader said he was moving warships towards the Middle Eastern nation “just in case” he wants to take military action. Tensions between Iran and the US have run high since the Islamic theocracy launched a bloody crackdown on protests triggered by the collapse of its currency last month. Mr Trump has repeatedly said he would be prepared to use military force if Tehran kills peaceful protesters and holds mass executions for those arrested in the demonstrations.

While the US President has claimed, without citing sources, that the regime halted the execution of 800 detainees, Iranian officials remain wary of the kind of intervention Mr Trump has shown he is not afraid to unleash on the international stage. A new mural unveiled in Enghelab Square, central Tehran, on Saturday, appears to directly warn the US against military action, depicting an aircraft carrier with damaged and exploding fighter planes on its flight deck, emblazoned with blood in a pattern reminiscent of the American flag.

A message in one corner of the mural reads: “If you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.”

It comes after Mr Trump confirmed that US warships were moving towards the region “just in case” he decides to take action.

“We have a massive fleet heading in that direction and maybe we won’t have to use it,” he told reporters on Air Force One on Thursday.

The President added that prospective attacks would make earlier American strikes on Iranian enrichment sites – linked to the Israel-Iran war last June – “look like peanuts”.

A US navy official also confirmed that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and accompanying warships were in the Indian Ocean.

Iran’s paramilitary revolutionary guard signalled that it was equally ready to engage in direct conflict in comments reported by Iranian outlet Nournews earlier this weekend.

General Mohammad Pakpour was quoted as saying: “The Islamic Revolutionary Guard and dear Iran stand more ready than ever, finger on the trigger, to execute the orders and directives of the Commander-in-Chief.”

There have been no further protests in Iran for around four days, but the US-backed Human Rights Activists News Agency has put the deal toll at 5,137, a number that could rise as information continues to trickle out amid an internet blackout that has lasted over two weeks.

The agency also put the total number of people arrested at 40,879 on Saturday, with the figures based on verification from a network of acitivists within Iran.

The Iranian government has put the death toll at 3,117, 2,427 of whom it says were civilians and security forces, with the rest labelled “terrorists”. The regime has previously undercounted or not fully reported the fatalities from past unrest.