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Jordan - Tower 22

The United States military announced on 28 January 2024 that three US soldiers were killed and at least 34 were wounded in a drone attack targeting Tower 22, a remote logistics outpost near the Jordan-Syrian border. The attack elicited a strong reaction from Washington with President Joe Biden pledging to hold the attackers to account. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella group of Iran-backed armed groups in the region, claimed the attacks, saying it was in response to US support to Israel’s war on Gaza, which has killed more than 26,000 people.

Tower 22, which houses a small US logistics outpost, is located in Jordan’s northeast close to the borders with Iraq and Syria. Public information about the outpost is limited. According to media reports, Tower 22 serves as a supply hub for the nearby US garrison of al-Tanf located across the border in Syria. At least 350 US Army and Air Force soldiers are also stationed there. It is unclear what type of weapons are kept at the outpost and the nature of air defences used. Since the beginning of Syria’s war in 2011, Washington has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to help Amman set up an elaborate surveillance system known as the Border Security Programme to stem infiltration by armed fighters from Syria and Iraq.

There is no runway evident in readily available satellite imagery, though there are clearly eight or so pads for helicopter operations which might suupport quadcopter UAVs. An apparent diagonal roadway on the SouthEast perimeter of the facility is rather more pronounced in recent imagerry and might serve as an unimproved dirt strip for small UAVs. Wes O'Donnell reported 30 January 2024 "Not surprisingly, thanks to all the interest around Tower 22, the US military has recently asked Google Earth to blur the base so military assets can no longer be seen." But now things have returned to normal. According to the Intercept news organization’s website, is that Tower 22 is a base for drones, carrying out long-range espionage operations on the resistance in neighboring Syria and Iraq, according to two American military sources. The base also serves as a staging facility for special operations forces and a base for medical helicopters.

One of the pilots present at the base said, according to the Intercept website, that saying that the base’s work was limited to logistical support is complete nonsense, as the weekly delivery of food and fuel to the nearby Al-Tanf base was only a small part of the base’s mission. He revealed that its main goal is to provide intelligence information to the air forces stationed in other bases, and to operate spy drones to target the resistance in Iraq and Syria, despite the American administration’s insistence that it does not want to expand the war in the region.

Tower 22 overlooks a Syrian refugee camp called Rukban, where 15,000 people have been living for years. Rukban is a remote, arid area in northeast Jordan, close to the border with Syria and Iraq. In 2014, it became a crossing point for Syrian refugees fleeing the Syrian Civil War. In 2018, the Syrian government has blockaded Rukban, which has become a desert camp where Syrians struggle to survive. In May 2023, the camp has come under increased attack and little aid has come in.

In this makeshift settlement in the arid “no man’s land” between the Jordanian, Iraqi and Syrian borders, thousands of Syrians continue to live under siege. Rukban camp is surrounded by Syrian government and Russian forces, who accuse its more than 8,000 residents of being “terrorists” and since 2019 have blocked United Nations aid from entering, forcing residents to survive off menial amounts of smuggled-in goods.

It is also near the Al-Tanf Garrison, where a couple hundred US troops are based. “Area 55” is the 55 km “de-confliction zone” around Tanf protected by US troops. Nobody calls it "area 55" - it's called the DCZ. The United States’s al-Tanf base is where the US trains partner forces against ISIL (ISIS) and disrupts the activities of Iranian-backed forces, which are deployed in close proximity to the desert outpost.

Al-Tanf, located in Syria on the Baghdad-Damascus highway, had been key in the fight against the ISIL (ISIS) armed group and has assumed a role as part of a US strategy to contain Iran’s military build-up in eastern Syria. Currently about 2,500 US troops are stationed in Iraq while 900 deployed in north-east Syria.

Jordan has a close security pact with the US and is one of the few regional allies who hold extensive exercises with American troops. Jordan’s army is one of the largest recipients of Washington’s foreign military financing.

Regional armed groups aligned with Iran respond to "American aggressors" at their own discretion, the Iranian minister of intelligence said a day after three U.S. soldiers were killed in attacks on US bases in Jordan. Esmail Khatib, speaking on Iranian state TV, used the phrase "Axis of Resistance", which refers to the coalition that includes Hamas and armed Shi'ite Muslim groups around the region that have militarily confronted Israel and its Western allies. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq, an umbrella organization of hardline Iran-backed militant groups, claimed the attacks on three bases, including one on the Jordan-Syria border.

The killing of three US service members in an overnight drone strike is the first since Israel launched its brutal military campaign in Gaza on October 7, which has killed more than 26,000 people and triggered responses from regional armed groups. The unmanned aerial strike targeted the living quarters in Tower 22 wounding 34 soldiers, some of whom sustained minor cuts or brain trauma, according to media reports. The US military said that at least eight of the wounded soldiers were flown out of Jordan for treatment. Experts raised questions about why the outpost’s air defences failed to detect the drone.

President Biden said he will hold those responsible to account. “While we are still gathering the facts of this attack, we know it was carried out by radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq,” Biden said in a statement. Iran denied it was behind the attack. “Iran had no connection and had nothing to do with the attack on the US base,” Tehran’s mission to the United Nations said in a statement on Monday published by the state news agency IRNA. “There is a conflict between US forces and resistance groups in the region, which reciprocate retaliatory attacks.”

Jordan condemned the “terrorist attack” and said it was cooperating with ally Washington to secure its frontier and “fight terrorism”. Former US President Donald Trump also condemned the attack, blaming it on the Biden administration: “This brazen attack on the United States is yet another horrific and tragic consequence of Joe Biden’s weakness and surrender.”

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Republican Senate Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as Senator Roger Wicke, all attributed the attack to Iran. Democratic leaders including Chuck Schumer, Jacky Rosen and Hakeem Jeffries also voiced in favour of holding those responsible accountable. Israel’s Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz said: “We stand united in our values and battle against a common enemy. Their sacrifice will always be remembered. Rest in peace. Wishing a speedy recovery to the injured.”

Egypt’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also released a statement, affirming the country’s “strong condemnation of any terrorist acts that threaten the security and stability of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, expressing full solidarity with Jordan in this delicate situation”.

The Institute for the Study of War, reported that Iran-backed militias have launched over 170 attacks targeting US bases in Iraq and Syria since Israel’s war on Gaza in the wake of the deadly Hamas attack on October 7. The groups – a part of the so-called “axis of resistance” – have targeted Washington for its military support to Israel in its war on Gaza.

On January 21, the US Central Command said that Iranian-backed groups attacked the Ain al-Assad airbase in Iraq. The Islamic Resistance in Iraq has claimed responsibility for dozens of attacks against bases housing US troops in Iraq and Syria. The group said on 28 January 2024 that it will continue its attacks as a response to “the massacres committed by the Zionist entity [Israel] against our people in Gaza” on the “strongholds of the enemies.”

Lebanese group Hezbollah has been engaged in deadly cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel, while Yemen’s Houthis have carried out multiple attacks against US and Israeli interests. On Monday, the Houthis said they launched a rocket at US warship Lewis B Puller as it sailed through the Gulf of Aden a day earlier. Those attacks have disrupted one of the busiest shipping routes in the world.

Iran does not want a regional escalation. The Iranian officials know a direct military confrontation with Israel also means a war with the US which could be a deadly one for Iran. While Washington has maintained its official stance that it is not at war in the region, it has been retaliating against the Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria and carrying out strikes against Yemen’s Houthi military capabilities.

Colin Clarke, senior research fellow at the Soufan Group, told Al Jazeera that these attacks show that there was a “regional war”. He told Al Jazeera “There is no denying that. US troops have been killed and the US will respond forcefully whether that is in Iran proper or against the Iranian proxies in the various countries where they operate”.