US bolsters defences around Jordan base as it readies strikes in response to drone attack

The United States has reinforced defences at a base in Jordan following an attack by Iran-backed militants a U.S. official said Friday. This move comes as the U.S. prepares for a broader response to a drone attack that resulted in the deaths of three service members.

Despite indications of an impending larger military response from the U.S., certain Iran-backed factions have pledged to persist in attacking U.S. forces in the region. Harakat al-Nujaba, one of Iraq’s prominent Iran-backed militias, declared its intention to continue military operations against U.S. troops in a statement released on Friday, even as other allied factions have ceased their attacks following a drone strike in Jordan on Sunday.

The U.S. response against threats by Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen, who have been firing drones and missiles at commercial and military ships in the Red Sea, continued Friday as well. A second U.S. official confirmed the military had taken self-defence strikes inside Yemen against Houthi military targets deemed an imminent threat.

Al-Masirah, a Houthi-run satellite news channel, said that British and American forces conducted three strikes in the northern Yemeni province of Hajjah on Friday. The strikes targeted the al-Jar area, the news channel said in a short post on its Telegram page. Hajjah province is situated northwest of the capital, Sanaa, and is a Houthi stronghold.

While previous U.S. responses in Iraq and Syria have been more limited, the attack on Tower 22, as the Jordan outpost is known, and the deaths of the three service members has crossed a line, the official said. In response, the U.S. is weighing a much wider response to include striking militia leaders. The U.S. options under consideration include targets in Syria, Yemen and Iraq, where the Iranian-made drone that killed the service members was fired from, the official said.

The attack on Tower 22 led to the first deaths of U.S. service members since the war between Israel and Hamas broke out. U.S. response options were being weighed as President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. CQ Brown travelled to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware to be with the families of those fallen soldiers as they are honoured at a transfer ceremony.

The U.S. has blamed the Jordan attack on the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a coalition of Iranian-backed militias. In the days since the attack, the U.S. has bolstered the defences around Tower 22, which houses about 350 U.S. troops and sits near the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria. The Iraqi border is only 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.

On Thursday Defense Secretary Austin indicated that the U.S. response against the militias would widen.

“At this point, it’s time to take away even more capability than we’ve taken in the past,” Austin said in his first press conference since he was hospitalized on Jan. 1 due to complications from prostate cancer treatment.

Austin said that Iran has had a hand in the attacks by supplying and training the militias. The U.S. has tried to communicate through backchannels to Iran over the last few months to get them to rein in the militant groups, another U.S. official said.

The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been acknowledged publicly.

The U.S. has also tried more limited military responses in a series of strikes against weapons storage sites and training areas. So far, the U.S. response has not deterred the groups, which have attacked U.S. facilities at least 166 times since October.

At least one group, Kataib Hezbollah, another powerful Iranian-backed Iraqi militia, which has been watched closely by U.S. officials, said Tuesday it would “suspend military and security operations against the occupying forces” to avoid embarrassing the Iraqi government in the wake of the Jordan attack.

With inputs from AP.