The White House on Monday vowed a “very consequential response” to a drone strike on a base in Jordan that killed three of its troopers however isn’t searching for warfare with Iran, a senior official mentioned following the blame pointed at Iran-backed teams by U.S. President Joe Biden.
The casualties – the primary U.S. navy deaths within the area since Israel launched an indiscriminate warfare on Gaza in retaliation to the Oct. 7 Hamas incursion – raised fears of an escalating battle.
“We are not looking for a war with Iran,” National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby instructed reporters, including nevertheless that the assault “was escalatory, make no mistake about it, and it requires a response.”
Biden mentioned on Sunday that Washington was nonetheless gathering the info on the assault, which he blamed on Iran-backed teams.
Iran mentioned it had nothing to do with the assault and denied U.S. accusations it supported teams behind the Sunday strike on the distant frontier base in Jordan’s northeast, close to the borders with Iraq and Syria.
“Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the U.S. base,” Iran’s mission to the United Nations mentioned in an announcement revealed by the state news company IRNA on Monday.
The U.S. media reported Monday, citing unnamed navy officers, that the failure to forestall the strike was presumably as a result of confusion over whether or not the drone was hostile or a U.S. gadget returning to base.
Kirby earlier instructed CNN that the U.S. response can be “very consequential,” however wouldn’t speculate on the choices Biden was contemplating, together with whether or not targets inside Iran have been on the desk.
American and allied forces have been focused within the area once more on Monday, this time by rockets in Syria, although no accidents have been reported, a U.S. protection official mentioned.
U.S. and coalition troops have been attacked not less than 165 instances since mid-October – 66 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and one in Jordan – with “a mix of one-way attack drones, rockets, mortars, and close-range ballistic missiles,” the Agence France-Presse (AFP) quoted the official as saying.
Britain has additionally blamed “Iran-aligned” militants for the Jordan assault – accusations that Iran’s overseas ministry has rejected as “baseless.”
There has to this point been no declare of accountability for Sunday’s strike, though the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed the identical day to have launched three drone assaults at bases in Syria, together with close to the Jordanian border.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed that the United States would take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops after the drone assault.
“Let me start with my outrage and sorrow (for) the deaths of three brave U.S. troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded,” Austin mentioned on the Pentagon.
“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,” Austin added in the beginning of a gathering with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg on the Pentagon.
The U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) mentioned late Sunday the assault had hit the distant Tower 22 logistics assist base and that 34 personnel have been additionally wounded.
The escalating Middle East battle poses a problem to Biden in an election yr, and Republican politicians have been fast to take purpose at him over the weekend.
A spokesperson for Hamas has earlier mentioned the Jordan assault was a message that the preventing in Gaza “risks a regional explosion.”
Fear over wider battle looms following Oct. 7 incursion of Hamas which Israeli officers mentioned left some 1,200 killed whereas subsequent indiscriminate assaults on Gaza have left not less than 26,637 folks in Gaza killed, most of them girls and youngsters, in keeping with the territory’s Health Ministry.
The United States and Britain have each carried out strikes concentrating on Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthi rebels, who’ve been attacking Red Sea transport in assist of Palestinians in Gaza for greater than two months.
Source: www.dailysabah.com