Questions swirled over backchannel contacts between Washington and Tehran after US President Donald Trump claimed that Iranian leaders had directly appealed to him to halt an ongoing wave of American strikes, a statement swiftly rejected by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Speaking to Fox News on Wednesday evening, Trump said Iranian officials had reached out as US military operations intensified, asking him to stop the bombing campaign. According to Fox News reporter Trey Yingst, Trump revealed that American forces had launched 49 Tomahawk missiles in the latest round of strikes carried out early Thursday, Iran time.

Trump also issued a stark warning about what could come next.

"If Iran does not agree to our terms to end this war, we'll bomb the S- out of them tomorrow night," he said, according to the Fox News report.

The comments immediately triggered questions over whether Tehran had sought a diplomatic off-ramp amid escalating hostilities between the two countries.

Iran, however, moved quickly to reject Trump's account.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps dismissed the US president's remarks as false, insisting that no Iranian officials had contacted him to request an end to the strikes. Iran's state-run IRNA news agency quoted the Guards as saying Trump's claim was "strongly denied" and accused him of attempting to create a narrative to justify or "escape" the consequences of war.

The conflicting versions from Washington and Tehran have added another layer of uncertainty to an already volatile confrontation. While Trump has portrayed Iran as seeking relief from sustained military pressure, Iranian authorities maintain that no such outreach took place.

With AFP inputs