Asked what was likely to be different, given the US had so far failed to deter Iran-backed militia from attacking American troops and assets, Biden replied: “We’ll see.”
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Three US troops were killed at the weekend and more than 40 others were injured after American defences failed to intercept a drone that had been launched by an Iranian-backed militia, mistaking it for a friendly drone returning to a US base – known as Tower 22 – on the Jordan-Syria border.
The drone attack – which the Pentagon said bore the “footprints” of Iran-aligned Iraqi armed group Kataib Hezbollah – marked the first time in which American soldiers have been killed in the fallout from the Israel-Hamas war.
Kataib Hezbollah announced on Tuesday that it would suspend military operations against US troops in the region, “in order to prevent embarrassment of the Iraqi government”.
“We will continue to defend our people in Gaza in other ways,” the group’s Secretary-General Abu Hussein al-Hamidawi said in a statement.
Those killed in the attack have been identified as William Jerome Rivers, 46; Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
On December 23, two Houthi anti-ship ballistic missiles were fired into international shipping lanes in the Southern Red Sea from Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen.
Biden has now spoken to all three families and will attend the dignified transfer of their remains at a service at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Friday.
But the president’s guarded comments about the US response underscores the challenge he faces as he seeks to avoid escalating tensions in the Middle East, while at the same time showing strength in the region.
Since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, Iranian-backed proxy groups have launched more than 150 attacks on the US in the Middle East, including a spate of attacks on shipping vessels in the Red Sea region by Iran-backed Houthis.
In response to the shipping attacks, the US convened a 12-nation coalition – which included Australia – warning the rebels they would face consequences if they continue attacking vessels passing through the crucial trade corridor.
This satellite image shows a military base in north-eastern Jordan where three US soldiers were killed and 40 wounded.Credit: Planet Labs PBC
But tensions have continued to rise to the point that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told reporters in Washington yesterday: “I would argue that we have not seen a situation as dangerous as the one we’re facing now across the region since at least 1973, and arguably even before that.”
The issue is politically perilous for Biden, given his potential election rematch against Donald Trump, who often boasts of his toughness against Iran and has repeatedly attacked the president as being too weak on the global stage.
“From the day Joe Biden surrendered American dignity in Afghanistan, the World has gone to Hell,” the former president wrote in a statement.
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Trump’s main Republican rival Nikki Haley also hit out at the president and suggested that the US should “go after” Iranian military leaders in response to the drone attack.
“Go after the launch sites where they’re doing it, and then go after the leadership,” she told CBS.
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