US officials say confusion preceded deadly drone attack in Jordan

WASHINGTON — Air defenses failed to stop an attack on a U.S. military post in Jordan on Sunday that killed three U.S. soldiers, at least in part because the hostile drone approached its target at the same time a U.S. drone was returning at the base, two US planes were killed. officials said Monday.

The enemy drone was mistaken for a U.S. surveillance drone returning to the remote supply base and air defenses were not immediately activated, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss preliminary findings on the root cause of the attack. episode.

Two other drones that attacked other nearby cities in southeastern Syria were shot down, they added.

The Wall Street Journal previously reported on the drone confusion, now at the center of a military Central Command investigation into the deadly attack that triggered promises of retaliation by the president Joe Biden, has raised questions about U.S. military defenses in the Middle East and led to new questions about the administration’s efforts to deter attacks by Iranian-backed militias on merchant ships, warships and military bases in the region.

Sunday’s attack killed three U.S. Army Reserve soldiers, the first known U.S. military casualties from hostile fire in the spreading agitation from the war between Israel and Hamas.

The Pentagon on Monday raised the number of injured to at least 40, warning that the list will likely grow as more soldiers exhibit symptoms of brain trauma caused by the blast.

Suspicious

Biden administration officials blamed a drone launched by an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, and the Pentagon’s suspicions immediately fell on Kataib Hezbollah, an Iranian-affiliated group in Iraq.

“It has the fingerprints of Kataib Hezbollah,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh told reporters, noting that intelligence analysts were still assessing the attack.

The Pentagon on Monday identified the dead soldiers as Sergeant William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Georgia; Corporal Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Corporal Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.

All three were stationed with the 718th Engineer Company, 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, an Army Reserve unit headquartered at Fort Moore, Georgia.

The drone attack on Tower 22, an outpost in northeastern Jordan near the borders with Syria and Iraq, intensified hostilities in the region, which have been escalating since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip.

A military investigation is underway to determine exactly what went wrong.

Pentagon officials said the base’s air defenses were functioning properly early Sunday morning.

Time was not a factor.

One theory the military is examining is that the militants studied the flight patterns of U.S. drones and deliberately They positioned their attack drone close to the returning American drone to make it harder to spot.

Tactics

Militant planners could have used Google Earth imagery of the base to guide the explosives-laden drone toward the center of a huge target, such as houses.

Biden has vowed to respond and met for the second straight day on Monday with his top national security advisers to discuss possible targets in Syria, Iraq and Iran.

Senior US officials have said a direct attack on Iran is less likely, although the US military has drawn up plans to attack Iranian military advisers and trainers in Iraq and Syria in case US troops are killed by Iranian-backed militias in the Middle East.

The Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austinon Monday – his first day back to work at the Pentagon since surgery last month for prostate cancer – he condemned the attacks and vowed retaliation.

“I would like to begin by expressing my outrage and sorrow at the death of three brave American soldiers in Jordan and the other soldiers who were injured,” Austin said before meeting with the NATO Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg.

“The president and I will not tolerate attacks against American forces and will take all necessary measures to defend the United States and our troops.”

The drone attack in Jordan highlighted that Iranian-backed militias – whether in Iran or Syria, or the Houthis in Yemen – remained capable of inflicting severe consequences on US troops despite the US military’s efforts to weaken them and avoid falling into a broader conflict, possibly with Iran itself.

American troops have been in Iraq and Syria, and now in Jordan attacked at least 165 times since October: 66 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and Sunday’s attack in Jordan, the Pentagon reported Monday.

Before the final salvo, more than 80 soldiers had suffered injuries, including traumatic brain injuries.

hidden enemy

“We know that Iran supports these groups,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said Monday.

“We know they supply them, we know they train them. We know they certainly don’t deter these attacks.”

The Secretary of State Anthony Blinken He said on Monday that he would not “telegraph” any possible U.S. response, but that such action “could be multi-layered, come in phases – and extended over time.”

Blinken added:

“This is an incredibly volatile time in the Middle East. I would say we haven’t seen a situation as dangerous as the one we face now across the region since at least 1973, and probably even before that.”

For its part, Iran on Monday denied any connection to the attack and accused the United States of stoking tensions in the region.

Around 350 Army and Air Force personnel are deployed at the Tower 22 border post.

It serves as a logistics and supply center for the nearby al-Tanf garrison in southeastern Syria, where U.S. troops are working with local Syrian partners to fight remnants of the group Islamic state.

The one-way attack drone struck near the outpost’s living quarters, causing injuries ranging from minor cuts to concussions, a U.S. military official said.

Eight U.S. service members were airlifted to Iraq for medical treatment, and three of them were expected to be airlifted to Germany for even more advanced care, Singh said.

Soldiers and airmen lived in containerized housing units, or CHUs, Singh said, essentially aluminum boxes a little larger than a commercial shipping container.

They have linoleum floors and cribs or beds inside and can be easily transported by truck.

“The difference in this attack is where it occurred,” Singh explained.

“It was pretty early in the morning, so people were actually in their beds when the drone hit.”

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