President Biden huddled with top advisers Monday vowing to respond to the weekend attack that killed three U.S. soldiers at a Jordanian base on the border with Syria, amid reports monitors at the base may have confused the hostile drone with one launched by the American outpost itself.
The strike, the latest in a tit-for-tat clash of U.S. forces with Iranian allies and proxies dotted around the volatile Middle East, crashed into the barracks where American troops were sleeping early Sunday morning. Along with the three fatalities, the Pentagon said at least 40 other service personnel had been wounded.
A Defense Department official could not confirm a Wall Street Journal report Monday that the U.S. failed to stop the drone strike because the hostile craft approached the remote base known as “Tower 22” at the same time a U.S. drone was returning from a mission.
“It’s something that [U.S. Central Command] is looking into to find out exactly what happened,” said Sabrina Singh, deputy Pentagon spokeswoman. “They’re doing the assessment on this. They’re working through what they need to do to make sure our service members … are fully protected.”
The Pentagon identified the three Army Reserve soldiers as Sgt. William Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spec. Kennedy Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Spec. Breonna Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia. They were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, part of the 926th Engineer Brigade at Fort Moore, Georgia.
The drone strike was the deadliest attack on U.S. service members since 13 American troops died in the August 2021 suicide bombing at the Kabul airport during the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
President Biden met with his national security team Monday at the White House. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, back at work after a lengthy and controversial health scare, said before the meeting that “the president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops.”
The U.S. has about 2,500 military personnel in Iraq and 900 in northeast Syria. About 350 Army and Air Force personnel are based at Tower 22. American forces are there as part of the U.S. deployment against the Islamic State terror group.
But the U.S. troops have been a constant target for Shiite militia groups in Iraq, many with long ties to Shiite Iran, who have demanded the American forces leave.
President Biden and other officials have said the U.S. will retaliate against those responsible for the deadly drone attack “at a time and place of our choosing.” While they believe Iran is supporting the militant groups, Pentagon officials insist they are not looking to increase the current tensions with Tehran.
“These troops were conducting a vital mission in the region aimed at helping us work with partners to counter ISIS,” White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters. “We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate but we will absolutely do what is required to protect yourselves, to continue that mission and respond appropriately to these attacks.”
Iran denies any involvement in the fatal drone attack at Tower 22, saying resistance groups in the Middle East are not taking their cues from Tehran.
“Repeating the unfounded allegations against Iran is shifting the blame and a plot by those who see their interests in, once again, getting the U.S. involved in a new conflict in the region and [provoking] it to expand and escalate the crisis in order to put a lid on their problems in this way,” Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said Monday.
The U.S. has accused Iran of backing several terror groups in the region, from Hezbollah militants in Lebanon firing missiles into Israel to the Houthi rebels in Yemen targeting commercial ships passing through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea.
Mr. Kanaani said Iran isn’t involved in the decision-making process of “resistance factions” that support the Palestinian cause.
“Iran is monitoring the developments in the region with preparedness and vigilance, and the responsibility for the repercussions of provocative allegations against Iran lies with those who make such baseless claims,” Mr. Kanaani said.
Some Republicans in Congress have pushed for the White House to retaliate against Iranian targets directly rather than strike their proxy groups, saying those steps have done little to deter additional attacks on U.S. personnel.
Sen. Dan Sullivan, Alaska Republican and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told Fox News Monday it was vital to “re-establish deterrence with regard to Iran.”
“I think our enemies certainly smell weakness out of the White House. There’s no doubt about it,” Mr. Sullivan said. “… The appeasement policy of the Biden administration has completely failed.”
• Staff writer Jeff Mordock contributed to this report.