Unlock the Publisher’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Three US service members were killed in a drone attack on a military base carried out by “radical Iranian-backed militant groups” in northeast Jordan, the White House said on Sunday.
It is the first time American soldiers have been killed in an attack in the Middle East since the war between Israel and Hamas began in Gaza last October.
President Joe Biden said the United States “will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a way that we choose.”
The attack constitutes a significant escalation that will likely drag the United States further into the conflict even as Washington seeks to avoid a broader regional conflagration.
In recent months the United States has launched several attacks against Iranian-backed Iraqi militants in Iraq and Syria who have conducted more than 140 attacks against American forces in the region. But he did not react directly against Iran.
U.S. defense officials said at least 34 service members were wounded in the attack on a military base in northeast Jordan. The incident occurred at the Tower 22 outpost near the Syrian border, where 350 members of the U.S. Army and Air Force are based as part of the coalition fighting ISIS. Jordan condemned the attack.
Oil prices increased in Asia on Monday morning following the White House announcement. Brent crude, the international benchmark, rose 1.1% to $84.46 a barrel. The equivalent U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate gained 1.1% to settle at $78.87 a barrel.
In Iraq and Syria, U.S. forces have come under repeated assaults by a recently created Iranian-backed militia group known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq.
The IRI said on Sunday it had carried out strikes using armed drones on three military bases hosting US troops in Syria, including Al-Tanf, located across the border from the Tower 22 outpost. It is unclear whether this was the attack that killed the three US soldiers.
The IRI said its attacks were in retaliation for Biden’s support for Israel in its war against Hamas in Gaza. The United States responded by carrying out airstrikes on facilities linked to Iraqi militia groups.
This month the US military killed a high-ranking commander of Harakat al-Nujaba, an Iranian-backed militia in Iraq. Washington described the action as “self-defense” after the faction conducted attacks on American personnel. Experts believe that Harakat al-Nujaba is one of the most influential factions of the IRI.
The United States and the United Kingdom have coordinated joint strikes against Houthi targets in Yemen in response to attacks by the Iran-backed rebel group on ships sailing through the Red Sea, a critical shipping lane for global trade.
Houthi rebels said their attacks on sea lanes were a response to Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip since it launched war against Hamas in October. The Houthis have carried out more than 30 attacks against commercial and international shipping since mid-November.
Iranian officials have repeatedly said that Tehran wants to avoid the outbreak of a broader regional war and does not want to get involved in a direct conflict with Israel or the United States. Iran’s official IRNA news agency on Monday quoted Iran’s permanent mission to the United Nations: “Iran has no connection to these attacks, and the clashes are between the US military and resistance groups in the region, which they confront each other.”
Jonathan Panikoff, a former senior intelligence official now at the Atlantic Council, said: “Iran is probably calculating that the United States is reticent to respond and engage in a regional conflict; something the administration has been vocal about for months.”
He added: “Facts on the ground demonstrate that avoiding regional conflict is becoming increasingly difficult, regardless of US wishes, and the US is now a primary target. This must push the Biden administration to at least reconsider how it views the nature of the current conflict.”
Leading Republicans in Congress have called for direct strikes against Iran. “Strike Iran now. Hit ’em hard,” Senator Lindsey Graham wrote on X.
The drone attack highlighted the conflicting foreign policy visions of the two Republican presidential candidates.
While hardliner Nikki Haley called on Biden to “react with the full force of American might,” Donald Trump, who is more isolationist, criticized the president but called for “an immediate return to PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.”
Additional reporting by William Sandlund in Hong Kong and Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran