US President Joe Biden says the United States will “hold all those responsible to account in due course.”
Three US service members killed and ‘many’ injured in drone attack in Jordan, US President Joe Biden said on Sunday. He blames the attack on Iranian-backed militias.
They were the first American casualties in months of strikes against American forces in the Middle East by Iranian-backed militias in the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
US authorities are still working to definitively identify the group responsible for the attack, but they believe that one of the groups supported by Iran was responsible.
Joe Biden declares that the United States “will hold all those responsible to account in a timely manner“.
There was no immediate reaction from Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territory in the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
American troops have long used Jordan as an outpost, and the attack took place in northeastern Jordan, near the Syrian border. US Central Command said 34 service members were injured in the attack, in addition to the three people killed.
Around 3,000 US troops are typically stationed in Jordan.
Jordanian state television quotes Muhannad Mubaidin, government spokesman, as insisting that the attack took place outside the kingdom, on the other side of the Syrian border. It was not immediately possible to reconcile this conflicting information.
Since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, American troops in Iraq and Syria have been the target of drone and missile attacks against their bases. This attack is the first to target American troops in Jordan.
Iran denies any involvement
The Iranian government has distanced itself from the deadly drone attack, saying the American allegations constitute a “unfounded accusation” aiming to “train“Washington in conflict.
The spokesperson for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Naser Kanani, argues that “resistance groups in the region do not take orders from Iran for their decisions and actions“.
He also states that “the repetition of baseless accusations against Iran is a conspiracy of those with an interest in dragging the United States into a new battle in the region“.