A drone strike blamed on Iran-aligned militias on Sunday killed at least three US service members and injured 34 in an American military base in northeast Jordan, near the Syrian border.
"The counter-ISIS mission is separate and distinct. Indeed it has been long-standing and unrelated to our efforts to support Israel and to prevent a wider conflict in the region. We do not seek another war. We do not seek to escalate but we will absolutely do what is required to protect ourselves, to continue that mission and to respond appropriately to these attacks,” Kirby told reporters during a press briefing on Monday.
On the same day Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh told Rudaw’s Diyar Kurda that while the US does not seek wider conflict with Iran, “these are Iran proxy groups that are launching attacks on our service members but we certainly don’t seek wider conflict, but we are also on the clock here, we’ll respond at a time and place of our choosing.”
Kirby told MSNBC earlier in the day that initial reports indicate that the attack was carried out by groups affiliated to Iraq-based Kataib Hezbollah “which is one of the big IRGC-funded, supported and resourced groups that operates in Iraq and Syria."
Kirby also said during the Monday presser that some injured soldiers are in serious conditions.
The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a network of shadow Iraqi militia groups affiliated with Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), has claimed responsibility for the drone attack, linking it to the US support for Israel in its war in Gaza.
There have been at least 165 attacks on US forces in Iraq and Syria since mid-October, according to the Pentagon. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed most of them.
Around 2,500 American troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria are leading an international coalition through Operation Inherent Resolve that has assisted Kurdish, Iraqi, and local Syrian forces in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), which once held swathes of land in Iraq and Syria but was declared territorially defeated in 2019.
