Drone that killed US soldiers in Jordan followed American drone onto base, causing confusion
Call me ignorant, but I don't think I knew that the US has bases in Jordan. Did you?
3,000! Are there 21 or more Towers?
America has used the Tower 22 outpost since 2015 in an "advise and assist" mission, initially training rebels fighting the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad
That didn't work out very well
and later aiding Kurds fighting the Islamic State.
That went better, but then TRE45QN betrayed the Kurds.
Tower 22, which hosts American engineering, aviation, logistics and security personnel, lies 20 kilometers from the Al-Tanf garrison in Syria, where US and local forces collaborate in combating the Islamic State.
Essentially defunct now, right?
As of 2020, Tower 22 had an operating AN/TPS-75 transportable 3D air search radar. At the time of the attack, there were about 350 personnel from the US Army and Air Force at Tower 22....
Responsibility
In the aftermath of the attack, U.S. officials assessed that one of several Iranian-supported groups had launched the attack, although it did not specifically identify the precise group responsible....
Reactions
... Republican senators John Cornyn and Lindsey Graham called on the White House to directly target Iran in response to the attacks....
Not our deepest thinkers.
Senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri told Reuters that the attack was a message to the US administration that "unless the killing of innocents in Gaza stops, it must confront the entire [Muslim] nation," and warned that the conflict could lead to a "regional explosion."
Wishful thinking, or is it?
Jordan condemned the attack and said it was cooperating with Washington to secure its borders. However, the Jordanian government spokesperson Muhannad Al Mubaidin insisted that the attack had happened outside of the kingdom across the border in Syria's al-Tanf base.
Egypt's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack, expressed solidarity, and affirmed its stance against any terrorist acts that threaten the stability and security of Jordan. It also emphasized the necessity of confronting all forms of terrorism and rejecting violence to maintain security in the region. The attack was also condemned by Bahrain.
Is drone "terrorism" dependent on the owner of the drone?
Iran denied involvement in the attack, but said "resistance groups in the region are responding [to] the war crimes and genocide of the child-killing Zionist regime." ...
The former is iffy and the latter is true, though whether the response is appropriate is debatable. This is not looking good for the region and world.
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