Tehran: Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Tuesday that the United States was the real "leader of world terrorism" after Washington blacklisted Iran's Revolutionary Guards as a "foreign terrorist organisation".

"Who are you to label revolutionary institutions as terrorists?" Rouhani asked in a speech broadcast live by state television. Rouhani defended the Revolutionary Guards as a force that has fought terrorism ever since its creation in 1979. In contrast, the Islamic republic's president accused US forces of having always been directly or indirectly involved with terrorist groups or acts of terrorism.