During the night of Sunday, three American soldiers were killed in a drone attack in northeastern Jordan. The US and UK have singled out an Iran-backed group as responsible.
“We are still gathering the facts surrounding the attack, but we know it was carried out by a militant, extremist Iran-backed group operating in Syria and Iraq,” President Joe Biden said in a statement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tehran has rejected the accusations.
– These claims have specific political purposes, replied the department’s spokesperson Nasser Kanaani.
War demands
Despite Iran’s denial of involvement, several Republicans in the Senate are demanding that Joe Biden go to attack the country – which, for its part, is ready if the conflict were to escalate.
The head of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) says in a statement that the country is not afraid of a war with the United States.
– We are hearing about some threats from US officials to target Iran. We tell them you’ve tested us and we know each other. We do not leave threats unanswered. We are not looking forward to war but we are not afraid of it. This is the well-known truth, said IRGC Commander-in-Chief Hossein Salami, according to The Guardian.
In Syria and Iraq, Iran-backed militia groups have carried out more than 150 attacks on US or Western-linked targets in recent months. Sunday’s drone strike was the first since the war in Gaza broke out, where US soldiers have been killed.
Kataib Hezbollah pauses
The Kataib Hezbollah group claimed responsibility for the attack in Jordan but said on Tuesday it was pausing its attacks on US forces to prevent “embarrassment of the Iraqi regime”.
The militia group claims at the same time that Iran, or “our brothers in the resistance”, were in no way aware of the attack.
The world is now waiting for the US to respond.
“Actions speak louder than words,” states the US Department of Defense.
Meanwhile, Biden says he has decided how he will respond to the attack, without elaborating on how it will happen.