Pablo PardoWashington Correspondent

Washington Correspondent

Updated Monday, January 29, 2024-18:39

  • Middle East A drone attack on the Jordanian border leaves at least three US soldiers dead and another 34 injured

  • Middle East Iran bombs Pakistan amid regional tensions

The United States mistook the suicide drone that killed three of its soldiers and injured 34 more in Jordan with one of its own, so it

did not activate anti-aircraft defense mechanisms to shoot it down

. The problem was also aggravated because the base attacked, called Tower 22, was a small military installation.

According to the

Wall Street Journal , citing

Pentagon

sources

, at the time the attack occurred, a drone from that country was returning to

Jordan

after a mission over Syria, and the air defense systems mistook the aggressor for that one. apparatus. The same sources do not explain whether the confusion was fortuitous or if the attacking drone intentionally used the one returning to its base to hide its presence or, at least, confuse the radars. The problem was aggravated because at the time the bombing took place, Tower-22 was not protected by Patriot anti-aircraft missiles, although it presumably had other means of anti-aircraft defense. Of the

34 wounded soldiers

, eight have had to be transferred out of Jordan for medical treatment.

Tower 22 is located in Jordan, 10 kilometers from that country's border with

Syria

and Iraq, and provides logistical support to the neighboring US base of Al-Tanf, located 20 kilometers to the north, in Syria, next to the border with

Iraq

, which has been one of the main military installations of

the United States

- and, in the past, of some of its allies, such as Norway - since the Western intervention to destroy the Islamic State (IS) occurred. ) in Syria in 2014.

The US has created a de- escalation

zone around Al-Tanf,

which in practice means that no one can enter there without being exposed to being blown up by US soldiers. In that area there are various militias of the Syrian opposition to the regime of dictator

Bachir el-Asad

, in addition to the Rukban refugee camp, near the border, where 100,000 displaced people from the Syrian civil war came to live, although today its number is 7,500, according to the Associated Press news agency.

Al-Tanf has played a key role in US military operations in Syria, and has been the target of multiple attacks. In 2019, Donald Trump's government officially changed the base's mission from combating IS to containing "Iranian influence" in Syria, in the words of then-National Security Advisor

John Bolton

. Its location is tremendously strategic, since it is on the M2 highway, which connects Damascus with Mosul, once the capital of the IS, this route also reaches Iran, so the presence of the base prevents the transit of men and material. from that country to Syria and from there to Lebanon.

Now, the reaction of the United States is pending. According to the media in that country, this will focus on the Iranian forces and their allies in Syria and Iraq who, according to some sources, have begun to evacuate their positions due to fear of a retaliatory attack. Since then-Jimmy Carter launched a failed Special Forces operation inside Iran to rescue hostages from the American embassy in Tehran in 1980, the United States has clashed militarily with that country during the Reagan and Trump presidencies, but never attacking Iranian territory.