WASHINGTON – President Biden said on Tuesday that he had decided how to respond after three US soldiers were killed in a weekend drone attack on a post in Jordan – but hastened to add that he did not want to widen the conflict in the Middle East.
Biden, 81, told reporters as he left the White House for a fundraiser through South Florida that “yes” he had determined the US response to Sunday’s attack, which is suspected to have been carried out by an Iran-backed militant group.
“I don’t think we need a wider war in the Middle East. That’s not what I’m looking for,” added the president.
President Biden said he had decided how to respond after three US soldiers were killed in a drone strike in Jordan over the weekend. Photo by MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
Asked if he held Iran responsible for the military deaths, Biden said, “I hold them responsible in the sense that they supplied weapons to the people who did it.”
Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, Spc. Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, was killed and more than 40 US soldiers were wounded in an attack on a remote outpost near the Syrian border.
The attack was the latest in a series of anti-American operations by Iranian proxies in Iraq, Syria and off the coast of Yemen following the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas targeting Israel.
Spc. Kennedy Sanders, Sgt. William Jerome Rivers and Spc. Breonna Alexsondria Moffett was killed in the attack. Shawn Sanders and the US Army via AP
Iran-backed Hamas killed about 1,200 people in southern Israel on Oct. 7. and took more than 200 hostages to the Gaza Strip, triggering a declaration of war by Israel and massive protests against the Jewish state around the world.
Biden earlier this month ordered US strikes on sites in Yemen used by the Iran-allied Houthi group, which has governed much of the country since 2014, in response to attacks on international commercial shipping.
Additional attacks have targeted US troops who remain stationed in Iraq and Syria after helping repel Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists who controlled much of the country during the Obama administration.
A Houthi rally in Sana’a, Yemen on January 28, 2024. A militia backed by Iran is suspected of being behind an attack on a US Army post in Jordan on Sunday. Photo by Mohammed Hamoud/Getty Images
Since Oct. 17, there have been “about 165 attacks — 66 in Iraq, 98 in Syria and of course, the one yesterday in Jordan,” Pentagon deputy spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said Monday, adding that in addition to the three deaths of about approximately 80 US personnel have received non-life threatening injuries.
Meanwhile, as of Tuesday, the Defense Department said the Houthis had attacked or threatened international and commercial shipping thirteen times since Nov. 19.
With reporting by Caitlin Doornbos
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
