Three U.S. Troops Are Killed In Drone Strike at Jordan Base
BY MICHAEL R. GORDON · 29 Gen 2024
Three U.S. service members were killed and at least 34 were injured in an Iran-backed militia’s drone strike on a base in northeast Jordan, U.S. officials said, marking the first American troops killed in hostile action since the start of the Hamas-Israeli conflict in Gaza.
A U.S. official said the attack took place at Tower 22, a small outpost near the Syrian border. The drone struck living quarters for the troops, contributing to the high number of casualties, a U.S. official said.
The strike, carried out by a one-way attack drone, marks an escalation in the fighting in the region. The president and secretary of defense said the U.S. would retaliate.
The strike confronts the Biden administration with its toughest test since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7 and Israel responded by sending troops into Gaza. The White
House has sought to avoid widening the conflict in the Middle East while trying to deter Iran-backed militias by gradually escalating its military ripostes against the groups. Now, Washington must decide how to take stronger military and potentially much tougher economic action without sparking a major conflict with Tehran.
Just what that response might be is also likely to figure in this year’s political campaign. Republicans on
Sunday said anything short of a forceful strike against Iran and the militias it backs will invite more aggression.
President Biden, who said the attack was carried out by Iran-backed militants in Syria and Iraq, signaled that a military response is planned.
“We had a tough day last
night in the Middle East. We lost three brave souls,” he said Sunday afternoon in Columbia, S.C. “We shall respond.”
A spokesman for the Iranian mission at the United Nations in New York said Iran had nothing to do with the attacks. “The conflict has been initiated by the United States military against resistance groups in Iraq and Syria, and such operations are reciprocal between them,” he said.
How broad the administration’s response should be is a matter of debate in Washington. Former officials noted a range of options that stop short of hitting Iran directly, such as striking its paramilitary Quds Force personnel in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, hitting Iranian ships at sea or mounting a major attack on the Iranbacked militia group deemed responsible.
“This was a mass-casualty attack on a soft target on the territory of an allied country. It crossed all the red lines,” Joel Rayburn, a special envoy for Syria during the Trump administration, said of the attack on Tower 22. “The point they are going to have to consider is how to impose costs on the Iranians directly. Attacks will go on until they do that.”
Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. Middle East peace negotiator now at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said the U.S. could send an “unmistaken signal” without crossing the Iranian red line of direct strikes on its territory.
Some Republicans, however, said the U.S. shouldn’t shy away from striking targets in Iran.
Sen. Tom Cotton (R., Ark.) a member of the Senate armed-services and intelligence committees, urged “dev- astating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces, both in Iran and across the Middle East.”
But Rep. Seth Mouton, a Massachusetts Democrat who serves on the House Armed Services Committee, cautioned against risking a major war with Iran. “From Iranianbacked militias to China, we have enemies across the world who want to see America bogged down in another war in the Middle East,” he said. “We must have an effective, strategic response on our terms and our timeline.”
Tower 22 has served as a support and logistics hub for Al Tanf Garrison in southeastern Syria, where U.S. forces have worked with local partners combating Islamic State militants. It hasn’t previously been targeted in the recent series of Iran-backed militia attacks.
The attack on Tower 22 appeared calculated to catch the U.S. off guard, said Andrew Tabler, a National Security Council official on Syria policy during the Trump administration who is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank.
Of the 34 service members injured, eight required evacuation but were reported to be in stable condition. U.S. Central Command cautioned that the number of service personnel that are injured might increase as often happens with cases of traumatic brain injury. There are approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel at the Tower 22 base.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella of pro-Iran militias, claimed responsibility for attacks on three U.S. bases in Syria, including Al Tanf, which is close to the Iraqi and Jordanian borders.
The Biden administration has sought to walk a fine line in responding to the Iranbacked militia attacks while trying to avoid inflaming politics in Iraq, where the presence of U.S. troops has been assailed by Shia hard-liners.
“The goal is to deter them and we don’t want to go down a path of greater escalation that drives to a much broader conflict within the region,” Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. said on ABC in an interview recorded before the attack and aired Sunday. Iranbacked militias have carried out more than 150 attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria since Oct. 17.
Iran has relied on a network of proxies throughout the Middle East and has avoided direct attacks on U.S. forces. .