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The US army did not cease the enemy drone that killed three of its service members after mistaking it for an American drone that approached a base close to Jordan’s border with Syria on the similar time, a US official mentioned.
The preliminary evaluation was disclosed because the US considers its response to the assault that happened over the weekend, the primary to kill US troops because the Israel-Hamas conflict that started on October 7 triggered a wave of assaults by Iranian-aligned teams towards American forces within the area.
The US army was nonetheless attempting to higher perceive the incident and the way the one-way assault drone was capable of trigger so many casualties, officers mentioned.
“We try to determine how a one-way assault drone was capable of evade our defences,” Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh mentioned.
Sunday’s assault, which US defence officers mentioned additionally injured at the very least 40 service members, struck the Tower 22 outpost close to Jordan’s border with Syria, which homes 350 US army personnel as a part of the coalition towards Isis. The drone struck early within the morning in an space the place service members reside and have been sleeping, a part of the explanation the casualty fee was so excessive, officers mentioned.
The US has about 2,500 troops in Iraq and about 900 in Syria, the place they’re deployed to assist stop a resurgence of the jihadist group.
President Joe Biden was “weighing the choices earlier than him”, John Kirby, Nationwide Safety Council spokesperson, instructed reporters on Monday. The president met along with his high advisers on Sunday and Monday to debate Washington’s response to the assault.
US officers mentioned they have been nonetheless assessing who was chargeable for the drone assault however noticed hyperlinks to Iraq-based Kataib Hizbollah, an Iranian-backed militia.
“It has the footprints of Kataib Hizbollah, however not making a last evaluation on that — our groups listed here are persevering with to do the evaluation,” Singh mentioned.
Biden had additionally blamed Iran-backed militias, however Kirby pressured the US didn’t search to “escalate” battle within the Center East, nor did it search “conflict” with Iran.
Kirby wouldn’t be drawn on the timing or nature of the US response, however mentioned the administration was “absolutely cognisant of the truth that these teams backed by Tehran have simply taken the lives of American troops”.
Iran has sought to distance itself from the lethal assault, because it and the US seem eager to keep away from an additional escalation. Iran’s international ministry labelled any accusation that it was concerned within the US troops’ deaths as a “baseless” conspiracy by these “involved in dragging the US into a brand new battle within the area to accentuate the disaster”.
However Singh mentioned on Monday that “Iran bears duty as a result of it funds these teams in Iraq and Syria that launch assaults on our service members”.
The US has hit targets linked to Iranian-backed militias throughout the area following 165 assaults by militants on US troops in Iraq, Syria and Jordan since October, in addition to greater than 30 strikes on worldwide transport within the Pink Sea.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin mentioned Washington would “take all obligatory actions to defend the US and our troops”. American forces in Syria and Iraq have come below repeated assault by a newly created group of Iran-backed Iraqi militias often known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which mentioned it was retaliating towards Washington’s backing for Israel’s conflict towards Hamas in Gaza.
Further reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and Raya Jalabi
