America has vowed a “very consequential response” to a drone attack on a base in Jordan that killed three American troops, with President Joe Biden blaming Iran-backed militants.
American troops were still in their sleeping quarters when the drone struck with little to no warning, the BBC’s America partner CBS reports.
The drone arrived at the same time as a returning United States drone and as a result elements of the defence system were turned off, an official says.
Iran denies that it was behind the attack, calling the accusations “baseless” and saying it was “not involved in the decision making of resistance groups.”
An umbrella group for Iran-backed militia calling itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq yesterday said it was responsible for the attack.
It is the first time United States soldiers have been killed by strikes in the region after Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel sparked the war in Gaza.
America Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, giving an update on the White House’s position, said the Biden administration will take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops.
He also expressed his “outrage and sorrow (for) the deaths of three brave Washington troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded”.
“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on American forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the United States and our troops,” he told reporters at the Pentagon.
The America military base, which became known as Tower 22, was supposed to remain secret, and neither Jordan nor the United States would disclose its presence inside Jordanian territory.
But after it was targeted by a drone over the weekend, the Pentagon has been forced for the first time to reveal the location of the base, established in 2016.
Meanwhile, the UK had yesterday announced a new set of sanctions aimed at tackling people who they say pose an “unacceptable threat to the UK’s security” from Iran.
Two Iranian officials accused of being behind a threat to kill on UK soil has been hit with asset freezes, as well as a unit of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds said to have targeted people in Britain.
Four other Iran-linked individuals, including two Turkish nationals, accused of killing an Iranian dissident in Istanbul have also been hit with sanctions.
An Iranian said to be the head of an international drug and trafficking cartel was also targeted for allegedly planning on conducting overseas attacks.
