BEIRUT\u00a0\u2014 A drone strike early Sunday that killed three U.S. service members and wounded dozens more is threatening to upend the Biden administration\u2019s delicate effort to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a broader regional conflict or direct confrontation with Iran.<\/p>\n
In the more than three months since Hamas killed 1,139 Israelis in a surprise attack and Israel responded with a punishing invasion into the Gaza Strip that has left about 27,000 dead, President Joe Biden has tried to keep hostilities from spreading in the restive region.<\/p>\n
Before Sunday, U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq had been targeted with some 160 attacks by Iran-backed militias angry over American support for Israel and Israel\u2019s attacks on Gaza. But despite numerous injuries to American troops in those strikes, the administration has avoided strong retaliation or counterattacks, with the notable exception of U.S. airstrikes against Houthi rebels who claimed responsibility for a string of maritime missile attacks in the Gulf of Aden.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s deadly drone attack along the Jordan-Syria border may alter that approach, forcing Biden to find a way to respond to American casualties without sparking a regionwide showdown with Iran.<\/p>\n
Also complicating the task were reports Monday \u2014 first appearing in the Wall Street Journal \u2014 that U.S. forces protecting operations in the region may have mistaken the enemy drone for a U.S. one that was returning to its base about the same time. Believing it was an American drone, they allowed it to cross unchallenged to the base, Associated Press said Monday.<\/p>\n
A Pentagon spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports and said it was still investigating the drone strike, including the possibility of human error.<\/p>\n
Central to the question Biden now faces is what role Iran played in the strike, which marked the first time American troops have been killed by hostile fire in the region since the start of the war.<\/p>\n
The attack was claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a catch-all label for a variety of Iranian-backed militias operating in Iraq and Syria. A statement released Sunday night said it was part of a trio of strikes on U.S. bases in the region and came \u201cin response to the Zionist entity\u2019s massacres against our people in Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden blamed \u201cradical Iran-backed militant groups,\u201d adding that the government was still \u201cgathering the facts\u201d of what he described as a \u201cdespicable and wholly unjust\u201d attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cHave no doubt,\u201d he concluded, \u201cwe will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to NBC News on Monday, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John F. Kirby said the attack had the \u201cearmarks\u201d of a group or groups supported by Kataib Hezbollah, a powerful Iraqi paramilitary faction that is a major player in the regionwide network of militants backed by Iran. It includes Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the Houthi rebels in Yemen and Lebanon\u2019s Hezbollah.<\/p>\n
Kataib Hezbollah members have fought alongside the Iraqi army against Islamic State since 2016, but have also operated in Syria in support of the government there.<\/p>\n
The group has long engaged in a low-grade tussle with U.S. forces, whose military presence in Iraq and Syria it considers an occupation. There are about 2,500 U.S. soldiers in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the counter-ISIS mission. Kataib Hezbollah has launched harassment attacks aimed at forcing Washington to withdraw its troops.<\/p>\n
Biden\u2019s first military act as president came in 2021 after a Kataib Hezbollah rocket barrage killed a civilian contractor and wounded a number of service members on a base in Iraq.<\/p>\n
Kirby said the U.S. is \u201cnot looking for a war with Iran.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not looking to escalate the conflict in the region. Obviously, these attacks keep coming. We\u2019ll keep looking at the options,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we want is a stable, secure, prosperous Middle East, and we want these attacks to stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
For its part, Tehran distanced itself from Sunday\u2019s attack. In a news conference Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Nasser Kanaani rejected Biden\u2019s statement as \u201cbaseless accusations,\u201d saying that \u201cresistance groups\u201d take no orders from Iran and that Tehran has \u201cno involvement\u201d in their decisions.<\/p>\n
Kanaani suggested the attack was orchestrated by forces seeking to provoke the U.S. and drag it into the conflict.<\/p>\n
Biden is already coming under pressure from Republicans to respond. They say his \u201cweak\u201d policies in the Middle East have been interpreted as a green light to attack U.S. targets.<\/p>\n
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said the administration\u2019s policy of deterrence had \u201cfailed miserably\u201d and that the U.S. armed forces had to attack inside Iran to have impact.<\/p>\n
\u201cHit Iran now,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cHit them hard.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such action could have dire consequences by escalating deadly violence exponentially, analysts say.<\/p>\n
One possible alternative would be a strike that targets a single Iranian leader or members of the proxy groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cIran doesn\u2019t want an all-out war \u2014 they cannot win it,\u201d said Rajan Menon, strategy program director for Defense Priorities, a think tank that advocates for more restrained foreign policy. \u201cBut that doesn\u2019t mean they don\u2019t have a lot of buttons to push\u201d that can roil the global economy, lead to many deaths and destabilize the region.\u201d<\/p>\n
U.S. officials are anxious about sparking more violence.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would argue that we have not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we are facing now across the region since at least 1973,\u201d Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said Monday, after a day of meetings with senior Arab leaders and the secretary general of NATO.<\/p>\n
Details on Sunday\u2019s strike remain scant, but it appears to have been the work of a single drone, which struck in the early morning the barracks in Tower 22, a base that lies within a series of Jordanian army-run border observation points on the country\u2019s northeastern tip near Iraq and Syria.<\/p>\n
Satellite images of the outpost and its surroundings published by Planet Labs on Sunday depict a grouping of bunkers, helipads and sleeping and dining quarters for troops against an arid desert backdrop. Some 8,000 displaced Syrians reside in the nearby Rukban camp.<\/p>\n
A source who until recently worked in a senior headquarters overseeing operations in Tower 22 said there had been numerous drone fly-bys at the outpost and the nearby Tanf Garrison, including before October. The base has counter-drone defenses.<\/p>\n
The attack comes days after Washington held its first talks with Baghdad on the future of U.S. and coalition troops in that country.<\/p>\n
Iraqi officials have for years pushed to reduce the U.S. presence \u2014 calls that were intensified after a U.S. strike in January killed the top commander of a Shiite faction in Baghdad.<\/p>\n
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani is reported to be considering completely ending the coalition presence in Iraq. An American retaliation that involved strikes on Iraqi soil is likely to empower anti-American voices in Iraq.<\/p>\n
The fallout affects Jordan too. The government there, a staunch U.S. ally, faces a wave of anti-American fervor over Washington\u2019s refusal to call for a cease-fire in Gaza. Jordanian officials have long downplayed U.S. military presence in the country; until Sunday, the existence of Tower 22 and the presence of U.S. troops there was a secret.<\/p>\n
One option, espoused by many Middle East leaders and echoed on Monday by Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al Thani, is bringing about a cease-fire in Gaza.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve warned since Day One this war has a potential of expanding and spilling over in the region … and we\u2019re seeing this building up in the last three months and a half,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Whatever choice the Biden administration makes, said Thanassi Cambanis, a senior fellow at the Century Foundation think tank, the U.S. is already embroiled in a regional war.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a limited war, which is certainly better than total war, but we\u2019re one or two miscalculations away from spiraling completely out of control,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWas it brilliant calibration by the resistance factions that no one was killed before, or was it luck?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was luck. And now, as was inevitable, luck has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n
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(Wilkinson reported from Washington.)<\/p>\n
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