Iran to blame for deaths of US troops, says Biden
Tehran-backed militia held responsible for drone attack that killed three servicemen
‘The three ... we lost were patriots in the highest sense, and their sacrifice will never be forgotten’
JOE BIDEN has blamed Iran for the deaths of three US service personnel in a “significant escalation” of the conflict in the Middle East.
The US president said the drone attack in Jordan that was responsible for the first combat deaths of US troops in more than two years was carried out by “radical Iran-backed militant groups” and he vowed to retaliate.
A further 25 US service personnel were injured after a suicide drone – designed to fly to a target and then explode – detonated at a military base in northern Jordan, near the Syrian border, on Saturday night. The Iran-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq (IRI) claimed credit for the attack.
The Jordan attack is the latest in a series across the region, carried out by a variety of arms-length groups backed by Tehran, which opposes Western support for Israel in the Gaza war and its military presence in the Middle East.
Yesterday, the Ministry of Defence (MOD) said HMS Diamond, a Royal Navy Type 45 destroyer in the region, was forced to use its Sea Viper missile system to counter a drone attack by Iranbacked Houthi rebels. It is the third time the warship has responded to Houthi aggression in the Red Sea.
The US and UK have conducted air strikes against the Houthis in Yemen in rtesponse to their launchung of hundreds of drone and missile attacks on commercial and naval ships.
In a statement, Mr Biden promised to respond to the attacks with military force, and Pentagon sources did not rule out retaliatory strikes against Iran, which would bring the US into direct conflict with the country’s military for the first time since Israel went into Gaza.
Mr Biden said: “The three American service members we lost were patriots in the highest sense, and their ultimate sacrifice will never be forgotten by our nation.”
He added: “Together, we will keep the sacred obligation we bear to their families. We will strive to be worthy of their honour and valour. We will carry on their commitment to fight terrorism, and have no doubt – we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”
A US official said the drone strike yesterday was “clearly an escalation of significance”, adding that the Pentagon had launched an investigation into how US air defences failed to repel the raid.
However, Donald Trump turned the blame on Mr Biden, saying on social media that he had left the world on the “brink of World War 3” after moving to defuse tension with Iran in recent years.
“This attack would never have happened if I was president, not even a chance. Just like the Iranian-backed Hamas attack on Israel would never have happened, the war in Ukraine would never have happened, and we would right now have peace throughout the World,” he said.
“Instead, we are on the brink of World War 3,” Mr Trump added.
US troops in the Middle East have been targeted more than 150 times by Iran-linked groups using drones packed with explosives since military action began in the wake of the Oct 7 Hamas attack on Israel.
The US has launched counter-strikes against the proxy groups in Iraq and Syria after the attacks wounded troops and killed a military contractor who suffered a “cardiac episode” while sheltering from a drone attack in western Iraq in October.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a branch of the Iranian armed forces, yesterday ordered the evacuation of Iranian militias in the Albukamal region of eastern Syria in anticipation of retaliatory air strikes by
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed credit for the attack on the US base in Jordan. It is a vague umbrella group of pro-iran militias operating in Iraq which emerged after Israel declared war on Hamas in Gaza following the Oct 7 incursion by the terror group. Following a fragile year-long ceasefire in which Iranbacked militias paused their attacks on US bases in Iraq and Syria, Washington’s unfettered support for the Israeli military made it a target for this new umbrella group. Amid a flood of attacks on US bases in the Middle East, credit was claimed by a new Telegram account called “Iraq Flood”, named after Hamas’s “Al Aqsa Flood” operation on Oct 7. Operating under an umbrella group allows individual militias to avoid accountability and reduces the likelihood of the US launching retaliatory strikes directly against them. The umbrella group was also designed to show a united front, according to the Washington Institute, suggesting that Iran’s Quds Force had “corralled” its many divided Iraqi proxy groups to fight as one. Some of the strongest Iran-aligned proxy forces in the region have affiliated themselves with the IRI brand, most notably Harakat Hezbollah al-nujaba. The US has publicly pointed the finger at Nujaba for being behind many of the attacks on US forces since October and attacked its forces in Baghdad in response. Other heavyweights including Kata’ib Hezbollah have not released competing claims for attacks against US forces, suggesting that it is also operating under the umbrella group.