What is the mysterious Tower 22, the US base in the middle of the desert attacked by a drone

An American military post little discussed in the desert In the north-eastern reaches of Jordan became the center of international attention after a drone strike killed three American soldiers and injured at least 34 others.

The base, known as Tower 22, is located near the demilitarized zone on the Jordan-Syria border, along a bulldozed sandy embankment that marks the southern border of the demilitarized zone. The Iraqi border is just 10 kilometers away.

The area is known as Rukbana vast arid region that once saw the rise of a refugee camp on the Syrian side after the rise of the so-called caliphate of the ISIS group in 2014.

At its peak, more than 100,000 people lived there, with Jordan preventing them from entering the kingdom for fear of infiltration by the extremist group. These concerns arose from a car bomb attack in 2016 who killed seven Jordanian border guards.

According to UN estimates, the camp has since been reduced to around 7,500 people due to a lack of supplies reaching it.

The base began as a Jordanian outpost guarding the borderthen saw a greater American presence there after US forces entered Syria in late 2015. The small facility includes engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops of the United States with approx 350 members of the army and the U.S. Air Force deployed. There.

AND one of the largest and most strategic US bases in the region of the Middle East and its main function is to support military operations in the area, especially in the fight against terrorism and in the stabilization of the region. It is also used to train and equip Jordanian military forces and to conduct humanitarian aid operations in the region.

The base’s location offers a place where U.S. forces can infiltrate and quietly leave Syria. A small American garrison in al-Tanf in Syria is located just 20 kilometers north of Tower 22. That base is located along a Syrian highway leading into Iraq and eventually Mosul, which was once a major base for the ISIS group . It is also a possible route for shipping weapons to Iran.

The risks

American troops have long used Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as a base point. About 3,000 American soldiers are stationed in Jordan.

However, the American presence in Jordan risks angering a population which has already organized massive demonstrations against Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip over civilian casualties in a conflict that has already killed more than 26,000 Palestinians. Estimates suggest that around 3 million of Jordan’s 11.5 million people are Palestinian.

Riots spread could threaten the government of King Abdullah II, a key ally of the United States. Initially Jordan he denied that the base of Tower 22 existed within its borders after Sunday’s attack.