It is the fear of a new escalation in the region against a backdrop of latent war between Israel and Iran. United States President Joe Biden promised to respond after the drone attack in Jordan which killed three American soldiers, targeting pro-Iran groups, while Tehran refuted, this Monday, January 29, any involvement.
This is the first time that American soldiers have been killed in the Middle East since the start, on October 7, of the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. “We will respond,” Joe Biden said on Sunday on the sidelines of a trip to South Carolina, after this attack launched against an American base in the middle of the desert on the border with Iraq and Syria.
“Today, America has a heavy heart. Last night, three American service members were killed, and several injured, in a drone attack on our forces based in northeastern Jordan, near the border Syrian,” the American president previously declared in a statement. “We know that this was carried out by groups of radical fighters supported by Iran operating in Syria and Iraq,” Joe Biden said. “Have no doubt: we will hold all those responsible to account, when and how we want.”
34 injured according to American Command
According to the US military Middle East Command (Centcom), the attack injured at least 34 people at the base, eight of whom had to be evacuated. Around 350 members of the army and air force carry out essential support missions from this base, including in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Tehran “has no link and has nothing to do with the attack on the American base”, affirmed Iran’s permanent representation at the UN, describing a “conflict between the United States and the groups of resistance in the region”, according to a bulletin from the official Iranian agency Irna.
“These groups are responding to the war crimes and genocide committed by the Zionist regime,” said Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani, referring to Israel. “They decide their actions on the basis of their own principles,” he continued, quoted by Irna. Iran also announced on Monday the execution by hanging of four men accused of spying for Israel.
Claim
In this election year in the United States, Joe Biden’s Republican opponents did not wait to criticize his diplomatic record, with Donald Trump denouncing the Democrat’s “weakness, abandonment” on Sunday.
The spokesperson for the Jordanian government, Muhannad Mubaidin, for his part condemned “the terrorist attack which targeted an advanced position on the border with Syria”, striking American troops “who cooperate with Jordan to confront terrorism and secure the border.
The attack was also condemned by Egypt, Bahrain and the United Kingdom, whose head of diplomacy, David Cameron, called on Iran for “de-escalation in the region”.
On its Telegram account, the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”, a nebula of fighters from pro-Iran armed groups, for its part claimed “attacks carried out on Sunday at dawn with drones” against three bases in Syrian territory, including those of Al-Tanf and Rukban, very close to the point where Iraq, Syria and Jordan meet.
Sami Abou Zahri, a Hamas spokesperson, said the death of the three soldiers “is a message to the American administration”: “the continuation of American-Zionist aggression in Gaza risks a regional explosion.”
Regional explosion
These American military deaths occur in an eruptive context: in addition to the war in Gaza, there have been multiple strikes and attacks between, on the one hand, Iran and its regional allies, and on the other Israel, the United States. United and their partners. Since mid-October, more than 150 drone strikes or rocket attacks have targeted American and coalition soldiers in Iraq and Syria. They are generally claimed by the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq”. Washington had so far responded with targeted strikes in Iraq.
Further south, the Houthis, who have been targeting international maritime traffic off the coast of Yemen for several months, have also been the target of American strikes since the beginning of January.
Furthermore, Israel has intensified its strikes against the Syrian regime and pro-Iranian groups in this country. Israel also faces, on its northern border, regular exchanges of fire with the Lebanese Hezbollah, very close to Iran.
Early Monday, a 21-year-old Palestinian man was hit in the abdomen by Israeli army fire near the village of Al-Yamoun west of Jenin in the West Bank, before dying from his injuries in the clinic where he was taken, medical sources told AFP.