Three U.S. service members were killed and an additional 25 wounded Saturday night at an American base in Jordan in a drone attack launched by Iranian-backed militias.
The attack marks the first time American troops have been killed in months of attacks on U.S. forces across the Middle East, a significant milestone in the drone and ballistic missile attacks across U.S. installations in Iraq, Syria, and now Jordan.
US Central Command said in a statement Sunday that service members were killed and wounded in a one-way drone attack that “impacted at a base in northeast Jordan.”
The base, Tower 22, is in northeast Jordan on the border with Syria.
In a statement, President Joe Biden said of the strike that “we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”
A White House official said the president was briefed Sunday morning on the attack by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, national security advisor Jake Sullivan, and Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer.
In a recorded interview on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning, Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. C.Q. Brown said that the U.S. does not want the conflict in the Middle East to continue to broaden.
“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,” he said.
American and British warships have also been busy shooting down drones and ballistic missiles firsted by Iranian-backed Houthi militants in Yemen. Several commercial shops have been struck in the attacks, which have disrupted global trade routes in the Red Sea.
Since October, there have been over 158 attacks on U.S. and allied forces in Iraq and Syria, though so far they have caused only minor injuries and damage to infrastructure.
The Tower 22 base has seen action before. On Oct. 23, Iran-backed militants in Syria launched multiple one-way attack drones close to al-Tanf Garrison, a small base near the border with Jordan, POLITICO reported previously. Coalition forces at Tower 22 took down the drones, which fell on the Syria side of the border.
Eugene Daniels contributed to this report.
3 US service members killed in Iran-backed drone attack in Jordan
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28.01.2024
Three U.S. service members were killed and an additional 25 wounded Saturday night at an American base in Jordan in a drone attack launched by Iranian-backed militias.
The attack marks the first time American troops have been killed in months of attacks on U.S. forces across the Middle East, a significant milestone in the drone and ballistic missile attacks across U.S. installations in Iraq, Syria, and now Jordan.
US Central Command said in a statement Sunday that service members were killed and wounded in a one-way drone attack that “impacted at........
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