It was a matter of time. Since Hamas’s brutal assault on Israel on October 7th, Iran-backed groups have fired drones and rockets at American outposts across the Middle East on 160 occasions. Almost all have missed or been shot down. On January 28th one got through, killing three American soldiers and injuring 34 others in Jordan. The incident—which is thought to be the first deadly aerial attack on American ground forces since the Korean war—piles pressure on Joe Biden, America’s president, to retaliate forcefully. It is likely to intensify a maelstrom of political violence now stretching from Lebanon to Yemen.
Statements by Mr Biden and the Pentagon’s Central Command (centcom), the military command which oversees the Middle East, said that a one-way attack drone had struck Tower 22, a small outpost at the extreme north-eastern corner of Jordan on the border with Syria. The drone hit living quarters on the base, according to the Washington Post, which cited an American official.
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