The United States continued to expressed outrage and vow a response to the deaths of American service members in Jordan following a drone attack it blamed on Iranian-backed militias, while Washington and London in a separate move stepped up pressure on Tehran with a new set of coordinated sanctions.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on January 29 doubled down on earlier vows by President Joe Biden to hold responsible those behind the drone attack, which also injured dozens of personnel, many of whom are being treated for traumatic brain injuries, according to the Pentagon.
"Let me start with my outrage and sorrow [for] the deaths of three brave U.S. troops in Jordan and for the other troops who were wounded," Austin told a Pentagon briefing.
"The president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops."
Later, White House national-security spokesman John Kirby told reporters that "we are not looking for a war with Iran."
He added, though, that drone attack "was escalatory, make no mistake about it, and it requires a response."
A day earlier, Biden said U.S. officials had assessed that one of several Iranian-backed groups was responsible for the attack and vowed to respond at a time of Washington’s choosing.
"While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq," Biden said.
"We will carry on their commitment to fight terrorism. And have no doubt -- we will hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing," Biden said in a separate statement.
Details of the attack remained unclear on January 29, but a U.S. official said the enemy drone may have been confused with a U.S.-launched drone returning to the military site near the Syrian border and was therefore not shot down.
The official, who requested anonymity, said preliminary reports indicate the enemy drone was flying at a low level at the same time a U.S. drone was returning to the base, known as Tower 22.
Iran on January 29 denied it had any link with the attack, with the Foreign Ministry in Tehran calling the accusations "baseless."
Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that "resistance groups" in the region do not take orders from Tehran, though Western nations accuse the country of helping arm, train, and fund such groups.
Earlier, Iran's Permanent Mission to the United Nations said, "Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the U.S. base."
Jordan condemned what it called a "terrorist attack" on a military site, saying it was cooperating with the United States to fortify its border defenses.
The attacks are certain to intensify political pressure in the United States on Biden -- who is in an election year -- to retaliate against Iranian interests in the region, possibly in Iraq or Syria, analysts say.
Gregory Brew, a historian and an analyst with the geopolitical risk firm Eurasia Group, told RFE/RL’s Radio Farda that the attack in Jordan represented a "major escalation -- and the U.S. is bound to respond forcefully and promptly."
"The response is likely to come through more intense U.S. action against Iran-backed militias in either Syria or Iraq. It's unclear if this was an intentional escalation by Iran and its allies, but the genie is out of the bottle," he added.
Republican Senator Tom Cotton, a vocal critic of Biden, a Democrat, on January 28 said the "only answer to these attacks must be devastating military retaliation against Iran’s terrorist forces.... Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward."
Many observers have expressed fears of a widening conflict in the Middle East after war broke out in Gaza following the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, which has been deemed a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. At least 1,200 were killed in those assaults, leading to Israel's retaliatory actions that, according to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, have killed more than 26,000 Palestinians.
Because of its support for Israel, U.S. forces have been the target of Islamist groups in the Middle East, including Iranian-backed Huthi rebels based in Yemen and militia groups in Iraq who are also supported by Tehran.
In another incident that will likely intensify such fears of a wider conflict, the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights -- which has extensive contacts inside Syria -- said an Israeli air strike against an Iranian-linked site in Damascus killed seven people, including fighters of Tehran-backed militias.
The Tasnim news agency, which is close to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), attributed the attack to Israel, writing that "two civilians" had been killed, while Syrian state television said "a number of Iranian advisers" had been killed at the "Iranian Advisory Center" in Damascus.
However, Iran’s ambassador to Syria, Hossein Akbari, denied the Iranian center had been targeted or that "any Iranian citizens or advisers" had been killed.
Meanwhile, the United States and Britain announced a set of coordinated sanctions against 11 officials with the IRGC for alleged connections to a criminal network that has targeted foreign dissidents and Iranian regime opponents for "numerous assassinations and kidnapping" at the behest of the Iranian Intelligence and Security Ministry.
A statement by the British Foreign Office said the sanctions are designed "to tackle the domestic threat posed by the Iranian regime, which seeks to export repression, harassment, and coercion against journalists and human rights defenders" in Britain, the United States, and elsewhere.
British Foreign Secretary David Cameron said the latest sanctions packages "exposes the roles of the Iranian officials and gangs involved in activity aimed to undermine, silence, and disrupt the democratic freedoms we value in the U.K."
"The U.K. and U.S. have sent a clear message: We will not tolerate this threat," he added.
With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Farda, Reuters, and AP
This content originally appeared on News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty and was authored by News - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty.
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