WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. forces may have mistaken an enemy drone for an American one and allowed it to pass unchallenged into a desert base in Jordan, where it killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded dozens more, officials said Monday.
Details of Sunday's attack emerged as President Joe Biden faced a difficult balancing act: blaming Iran and trying to strike back forcefully without further escalating the Gaza conflict.
As the enemy drone flew in at low altitude, a U.S. drone returned to the small facility called Tower 22, according to a preliminary report cited by two officials who were not authorized to comment and insisted on anonymity.
As a result, there was no effort to shoot down the enemy drone that hit the outpost. One of the trailers where the troops sleep was the most affected by the attack, while surrounding trailers suffered only limited damage from the explosion and flying debris. While there are no major air defense systems at Tower 22, the base does have counter-drone systems, such as Coyote drone interceptors.
Aside from the soldiers killed, more than 40 soldiers were injured in the attack, most with cuts, bruises, brain injuries and similar wounds, according to the Pentagon. Eight were medically evacuated, including three who were taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. The other five, who suffered “mild traumatic brain injuries,” were expected to return to duty.
Asked whether the failure to shoot down the enemy drone was “human error,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said US Central Command was still reviewing the matter.
The Pentagon identified those killed in the attack as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
The three U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers were assigned to the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion and 926th Engineer Brigade at Fort Moore, Georgia.
The explanation for how the enemy drone was able to evade US air defenses came as the White House said on Monday it did not expect war with Iran, even as Biden announced retaliation. The democratic government believes that Tehran was behind the attack.
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports.
Biden met with national security advisers in the White House Situation Room to discuss the latest developments and possible retaliation.
“There is no easy answer here,” said John Kirby, spokesman for the National Security Council. “And that’s why the president is meeting with his national security team to weigh the options before him.”
The brazen attack, which the Biden administration attributes to Iranian proxies, adds further complexity to the already tense situation in the Middle East as the Biden administration seeks to prevent the war between Israel and Hamas from becoming a larger regional conflict expands.
“The President and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary measures to defend the United States and our troops,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said in his meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Pentagon.
The drone attack was one of dozens on US troops in the Middle East since Hamas launched attacks on Israel on October 7, triggering the war in Gaza. But it is the first time American soldiers have been killed.
Biden promised on Sunday to “hold all those responsible accountable at a time and in a manner of our choosing” but said the US was not seeking to get into another conflict in the Middle East.
Kirby also made clear that American patience was running out after more than two months of attacks by Iranian proxies on U.S. troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan, as well as on U.S. naval and commercial vessels in the Red Sea. The proxy groups – including Yemen's Houthi rebels and Iraq-based Kataeb Hezbollah – say the attacks are a response to Israel's ongoing military operations in Gaza.
“We are not seeking war with Iran,” Kirby told reporters. “Nevertheless, it was a very serious attack. It had fatal consequences. We will respond, and we will respond appropriately.”
Iran denied on Monday that it was behind the attack in Jordan.
“These claims are made with specific political objectives to reverse the realities in the region,” Iranian state news agency IRNA quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani as saying. Iran regularly denies involvement in attacks linked to the militias it has armed across the Middle East.
Kirby said U.S. officials are still working to determine which militant group was behind the attack. He pointed out that Iran has long equipped and trained the militias.
Republicans accuse Biden of doing too little to deter Iranian militias, which have carried out about 165 attacks on US troops in the region since the war began.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called Sunday's attack “another terrible and tragic consequence of Joe Biden's weakness and capitulation.”
The attack hit a U.S. military outpost in the desert of far northeastern Jordan, known as Tower 22. The facility is located near the demilitarized zone on the Jordan-Syria border along a sandy, graded escarpment that borders the southern edge the DMZ marked. The Iraqi border is only 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.
The base initially served as a Jordanian border surveillance outpost and then saw an increased U.S. presence after American troops invaded Syria in late 2015. The small installation includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security forces, with approximately 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel on duty.
The Iraqi government condemned the drone attack. Spokesman Bassem al-Awadi said in a statement that Iraq was “watching with great concern the alarming security developments in the region” and called for “an end to the cycle of violence.” The statement said Iraq was ready to participate in diplomatic efforts to prevent further escalation.
An umbrella organization of Iran-backed groups known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks on US troop bases in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. On Sunday, the group claimed three drone strikes against locations in Syria, including near the border with Jordan, and one in “occupied Palestine,” but has not yet claimed the attack in Jordan.
John Bolton, who served as Trump's national security adviser, said Iran has paid no price for the chaos its proxies have wreaked in the region. He suggested that the Biden administration could send a strong signal to Tehran with attacks on Iranian ships in the Red Sea, Iranian air defense installations along the Iraqi border and bases that have been used for years to train and supply militant groups.
“So until Iran bears the costs, you will not restore deterrence and you will not put belligerence on a downward trend.”
The attack came as U.S. officials saw signs of progress in negotiations to broker a deal between Israel and Hamas that would see the release of the more than 100 remaining hostages in the Gaza Strip in exchange for a longer pause in fighting. Although the contours of any agreement under consideration would not end the war, Americans believed it could lay the foundation for a lasting solution to the conflict.
Qatar's prime minister said Monday that senior US and Middle Eastern mediators had reached a framework proposal for releasing hostages and halting fighting in Gaza that he could present to Hamas.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Thani's comments at the Atlantic Council in Washington came after talks in Paris on Sunday between representatives of the United States, Israel, Qatar and Egypt on a new round of hostage releases and a ceasefire in Gaza.
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Associated Press writers Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad, Jon Gambrell in Jerusalem and Geir Moulson in Berlin contributed reporting.