A tight-lipped President Biden said Tuesday he’s decided how to respond to the drone strike that killed three U.S. troops at a remote base in Jordan on Sunday, but offered no details and again said he doesn’t want the U.S. embroiled in a wider conflict in the Middle East.
Departing for Florida, Mr. Biden told reporters that he holds Iran partly responsible for the deaths, though he didn’t comment on possible targets.
“I do hold them responsible in the sense that they’re supplying the weapons to the people who did it,” he said outside the White House.
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said later that the U.S. military response likely will be a “tiered approach,” suggesting multiple attacks over a period of time instead of a singular strike. Option range from more targeted, pinpoint strikes at militia targets — an approach that has failed thus far — all the way to a direct hit on Iran itself, as some in Congress have urged.
Mr. Biden declined to say whether his team established a direct link to Iran, saying: “We’ll have that discussion.”
An enemy drone on Sunday struck a small military installation known as Tower 22, killing three American troops and injuring about 40 more.
Calls for a forceful response are putting Mr. Biden in a tough spot. He wants to retaliate, though doesn’t want to worsen matters in an already turbulent Middle East, where Houthis rebels are attacking ships in the Red Sea and Israel is engaged in a full-scale offensive campaign against Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza.
Citing Pentagon officials, The Associated Press says there have been a total of 166 attacks on U.S. military installations since Oct. 18, including 67 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and now one in Jordan. On Tuesday, Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq was targeted again by a single rocket, but there was no damage and no injuries in that attack, the Pentagon said.
The three soldiers killed in the Jordan strike were the first U.S. military fatalities in the Middle East since the Israel-Hamas war broke out. Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany said it expected to receive three U.S. service members who were injured in the drone attack, including one listed in critical, but stable, condition.
U.S. officials had been hoping that talk of a possible extended cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza could have a moderating effect on clashes elsewhere in the region. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday poured cold water on that idea, saying Israel will not withdraw from the Gaza Strip or release thousands of jailed militants as part of the deal.
In one bit of encouraging news Tuesday, Arab media outlets were reporting that Kataib Hebollah, a leading Iraqi Shiite militia group battling the U.S. troop presence in the country, had announced a “suspension” of attacks on U.S. forces, saying in a statement it wanted to remove an “embarrassment for the Iraqi government.”
“We will continue to defend our people in Gaza through other means,” the group’s Secretary General Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in a statement to Sabereen News, an outlet affiliated with Iran-backed militias in Iraq.
Some Republican hard-liners want Mr. Biden to hit Iran within its borders, but many analysts see that as unlikely.
“I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s not what I’m looking for.”
Mr. Kirby said he could not confirm which group was responsible for the Jordan attack, but it has “all the hallmarks” of groups with close and long-term links to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“We’re going to respond, and we’re going to do it in a way and a time of our own choosing,” Mr. Kirby told reporters on Air Force One. “That’s not a different approach than we’ve taken in the past.”
Mr. Biden on Tuesday spoke to the families of the Americans who died in the attack: Sgt. William Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Specialist Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Specialist Breonna Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
Mr. Biden plans to attend the transfer of their bodies at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. The families supported his decision to attend, according to Mr. Kirby.
• This story is based in part on wire service reports.