Iran’s legislators showed solidarity with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Tuesday after the US designated it as a terrorist organisation by wearing the guards’ uniforms and chanting “death to America” on the parliament’s floor.

The members of parliament are expected to pass an urgent plan to brand the US Central Command a terrorist organisation and the US administration a state sponsor of terrorism. The plan would call on pro-Iran military groups in the region — which will supposedly include its main proxy force, Lebanon’s Hizbollah — to hand over American troops, if arrested, to the Islamic republic to be put on trial in Iran.

Ali Larijani, Iran’s parliament speaker who was in dark green uniform of the guards, said on Tuesday that the parliament would “condemn” the US move which showed “the depth of the ignorance” of “American regime”. He accused Washington of “international terrorism” both in military and economic sectors, a clear reference to the sanctions against Iran.

“You should know that the guards are in the hearts of Iranian nation and bring security to the country,” Mr Larijani said. “We are all proud of being guards’ members.”

Iran’s president Hassan Rouhani also defended the guards as a force which fought against terrorism in the region and defeated groups like Isis. “They [US] cannot rob us of our military might,” he said in a public speech on Tuesday. “The US itself is on top of global terrorism.”

Some hardline and pro-reform Iranian media have already started calling US military-men terrorists. Fars news agency, close to the guards, said four “American army terrorists” were killed in a bombing in Afghanistan on Tuesday.