WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the United States has “won” the war with Iran but will continue military operations until the job is finished.

"We're not leaving until that job is finished. And it's going to be very fast. Going to be very fast," Trump said at an event in the state of Kentucky.

Regional tensions have escalated since Feb. 28, when the US and Israel launched a joint attack on Iran that has killed more than 1,300 people, including former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Trump said the US "knocked out" 58 Iranian naval ships.

The president also argued that the operation had already achieved major success but cautioned that he preferred not to declare victory too early.

"We've won. Let me tell you, we've won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the bet—In the first hour, it was over," he said.

He reiterated that the US did "an excursion."

"You know what an excursion means? We had to take a little trip to get rid of some evil, very evil people. It should have been done for 47 years. They've been killing our people," he said, adding Iran was "all prepared."

"They're very strong, you know. They're going to try and take over the whole Middle East. They're going to knock out Israel. They don't know what the hell hit them, right? They don't know they got hit by the American military...They didn't expect anything like this," he said.

Trump said the US does not want to leave "early."

"We don't want to leave early do we?" he said. "We got to finish the job. Over the past 11 days, our military has virtually destroyed Iran, tough country."