Iran is distributing iodine tablets to communities near its nuclear facilities as it prepares for the possibility of US strikes, The Times of London reports, citing an Iranian Health Ministry official.

“Yes, we are distributing iodine,” the official said. “Trump can no longer be trusted. He may go through with this crime.”

The official said that during every war Iran had tried to distribute the tablets within a radius of two to three kilometres (1.2 to 1.9 miles) of nuclear facilities.

Iodine tablets are used to protect the thyroid gland from radiation.

The newspaper reported that an Iranian political journalist said officials had been told at a recent briefing that a US nuclear strike on the heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain site was being seriously considered.

Ebrahim Azizi, head of Iran’s parliamentary National Security Committee, says the United States and Israel will pay a price for the war, and that Iran will respond decisively to any mistake.

“We won’t let Trump walk away from the region without paying a price and reparations,” Azizi wrote in a post on X. “Every mistake will be met with a decisive response until we liberate America’s largest military base, the Zionist regime, once and for all.”

Azizi makes the remarks as Iran’s supreme leader has ordered the military to update its target bank and respond to any new attack “without geographical limitations”.