The killing of US troops in Jordan has become a cause of concern in the Middle East
The Jordan and Syria attacks in the Israel-Hamas war: U.S. troops in the southeastern part of the Middle East
There were troops stationed in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border. There was an attack at Tower 22 and it is thought to have hit a barracks.
Tower 22 supports the Al-Tanf Garrison in southeastern Syria, where U.S. special operations have long operated in tandem with other countries in combatting Islamic State militants.
The war in the Middle East started after the Hamas attacks on Israel. The U.S. has been attempting to contain the conflict and prevent a from spreading wider in the region.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed credit for the attack. The group said that it was revenge for the death toll of Palestinians in Gaza.
The AP reported on Monday that Yemen’s Houthi rebels attacked a Navy base in the Gulf of Aden. The US denied the claim.
US troops are in Iraq and Syria to support the fight against militant group IS. Since the Israel-Hamas war started, Iranian-linked forces have carried out more than 140 attacks in those two countries.
Earlier this month, Central Command said a “number” of U.S. military personnel were evaluated for traumatic brain injuries after Iran-backed groups launched multiple ballistic missiles and rockets on an airbase in western Iraq. Most of the missiles were intercepted but at least one Iraqi service member was wounded, it added.
The U.S. response to the Jordan attack: “We don’t want to see a bigger war,” Kirby told The Inskeep
She said she thinks we’ve crossed that threshold now. “The danger is that you see the Americans going in to try to prevent a wider war, to contain the violence, and instead only providing more targets.”
John Kirby said that there would be a response to Sunday’s attack which will hopefully have a better effect on the decision-making of the groups.
“We’re going to take the right time to make the appropriate response decisions in the wake of this attack,” he said. The president has taken it very seriously.
Vice President Biden met with his top advisers, including Jake Sullivan, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Director of National Intelligence and the Middle East Envoy, on Monday to discuss the threats.
The Associated Press reported that the Syrian military said that Israeli strikes outside of Damascus killed and wounded several people.
The Iranian-backed rebels launched missiles and drones at ships in the Red Sea. They said that it’s a reaction to the war in Gaza. The U.S has responded with its own strikes.
Kirby insisted the US was not talking about the latest spike in violence as a regional war after Sunday’s attack in Jordan.
“We do not want to see a wider conflict,” Kirby said. Everything the president has done since the seventh of October has been to try to prevent a larger conflict. We’re not interested in a war with Iran.
“There have been some backchannel communications between Washington and Tehran to say they don’t want the war that has been playing out since Oct. 7 between Israel and Gaza to expand,” Robin Wright, a distinguished fellow at the Wilson Center, told Morning Edition’s Inskeep.
