USA threatens retaliation
Iran denies involvement in deadly attack in Jordan
January 29, 2024, 8:05 a.m
Three soldiers die and at least 34 are injured in an attack on a US base in Jordan. Now fears of an expansion of the war against Israel are growing. US President Biden wants to hold militant pro-Iranian groups “accountable”. Meanwhile, Iran denies any blame.
After three US soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Jordan, the Iranian government has denied any responsibility for the incident, according to media reports. These accusations were made with the political aim of “reversing the realities in the region,” the state news agency Irna quoted foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying. The resistance groups in the region were responding “to the war crimes and genocide of the Zionist regime,” Kanaani added, referring to Iran’s arch-enemy Israel. “They decide their actions based on their own principles,” he explained. British Foreign Secretary David Cameron had previously called on Tehran to “de-escalate”. Kanaani said such statements threatened “regional and international peace and stability.”
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden has announced retaliation. “We will react,” Biden said on Sunday (local time) at an event in the US state of South Carolina. He blamed pro-Iranian groups for the incident. “While we are still gathering the facts about this attack, we already know that it was carried out by a radical, Iran-backed militant group operating in Syria and Iraq,” Biden said in Washington. At the same time he announced retaliation.
According to the US Central Command for the Middle East (Centcom), 3 US soldiers were killed and at least 34 others injured in the shelling of a military base in northeastern Jordan near the border with Syria on Sunday night. Eight of the injured had to be evacuated. It was the first time since the beginning of the Gaza war between Israel and the radical Islamic Palestinian organization Hamas that US soldiers died from enemy fire. The deadly attack fuels fears of a further escalation of the conflict.
Hamas escalates – Jordan condemns drone attack
View of the US base “Tower 22”, here in a satellite image from October 23, 2023.
(Photo: dpa)
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Suhri said the deaths of the US soldiers were “a message to the US government that as long as the killing of innocent people in the Gaza Strip does not stop, it will target the entire (Muslim) nation.” While the Jordanian government initially said the attack had targeted a military base in Syria, government spokesman Muhannad Mubaidin later said the country condemned “the terrorist attack on an outpost on the border with Syria.” US forces have been working with Jordan “to combat terrorism and secure the border.” Bahrain, Egypt and Britain also condemned the attack.
According to Centcom, around 350 US Army and Air Force personnel are stationed at the base, carrying out “a number of important support tasks”, including for the international coalition against the Islamic State jihadist militia. According to the US Department of Defense, soldiers of the US Army and its allies in Iraq and Syria have been attacked more than 150 times since mid-October. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of armed groups with ties to Iran, has claimed responsibility for many attacks on US soldiers. The US Army responded with repeated attacks in both countries.