‘Pro-Iran militants behind Jordan attack’
WASHINGTON, D.C.: A drone attack on a base in jordan killed three american troops, with united states president joe biden blaming iran-backed militants for the first us military deaths in the region since the israel-hamas war began.
Iran said it had nothing to do with the attack and denied US and British accusations that it supported militant groups responsible for the strike on the remote frontier base in Jordan’s northeast, near the borders with Iraq and Syria.
“While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” Biden said in a statement, pledging to hold “all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”
He later held a moment of silence at a South Carolina church’s banquet hall for the US troops killed in the attack, vowing: “We shall respond.”
With the region already tense as fighting rages in Gaza, the strike will also raise fears of a broader conflict directly involving Tehran.
There has so far been no claim of responsibility for the strike, but United Kingdom Foreign Secretary David Cameron reiterated a call for Iran “to de-escalate in the region.”
He also condemned the attack “by Iran-aligned militia groups” in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Iranian representatives at the United Nations told the official Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) that Tehran had nothing to do with the attack. A Tehran Foreign Ministry spokesman also rejected the US and British accusations.
“These claims are made with specific political goals to reverse the realities of the region,” IRNA quoted spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying.
‘Regional explosion’
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri called the attack in Jordan “a message to the American administration.”
“The continuation of the American-Zionist aggression on Gaza risks a regional explosion,” he said.
The US Central Command (Centcom) said on Sunday night that the attack had hit the remote Tower 22 logistics support base and that 34 personnel were also wounded, eight of whom required evacuation.
There are about 350 US Army and Air Force personnel at the base who operate in support roles, including for the international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist group, Centcom said.
Jordan’s government spokesman Muhannad Mubaidin condemned the attack, as did Bahrain and Egypt.
The escalating Middle East conflict poses a challenge to Biden in an election year.
Republican politicians were quick to take aim at Biden over the deadly attack, including his predecessor Donald Trump, who described the situation as a “consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness and surrender.”
US and allied forces in Iraq and Syria have been targeted in more than 150 attacks since mid-October, the Pentagon said, and Washington has carried out retaliatory strikes in both countries.
Many of the attacks on US personnel have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose US support for Israel in the Gaza war.
The latest round of the Israel-Hamas conflict began when the Palestinian militant group launched unprecedented attacks on southern Israel on October 7 that resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) tally of official figures.
Israel retaliated with a relentless military offensive that has killed at least 26,422 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, the Hamas-run territory’s Health Ministry said.
Anger over that campaign has grown across the region, with violence involving Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, as well as Yemen.