In a White House statement on January 28, Biden said: "Today, our American mood is very heavy. Just last night, U.S. troops stationed in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border were bombed by drones, killing three U.S. service members and wounding many others. ”
On January 28, 2024 local time, a US military base on the border between Jordan and Syria was attacked, and dozens of US soldiers were killed or wounded. This news was confirmed by the US Central Command and President Joe Biden.
In recent years, US military bases in the Middle East have been frequently attacked by Iran and various anti-US forces. The largest of these was the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' retaliation against the U.S. military after Soleimani's death. On January 3, 2020, Soleimani was killed in a missile attack launched by a U.S. drone at the Baghdad airport in Iraq. In retaliation, Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired multiple ballistic missiles at multiple U.S. military bases in Iraq.
But none of these attacks, including this missile attack, caused much damage to the US military. At the time, Iran claimed that the Revolutionary Guards had fired more than 30 ballistic missiles, many of which hit the base, killing and wounding about 200 U.S. troops. But in fact, according to the US Central Command later reported, Iran launched a total of 15 ballistic missiles, of which 4 missed the target, and the other 11 hit the Assad air base and the Erbil military base, respectively. In this attack, only a few dozen U.S. soldiers suffered minor concussions, and there were no other casualties.
The Jan. 28 attack was different, also according to information released by the U.S. Central Command, which had killed three U.S. soldiers, disabled 25 others, and suffered 35 concussions. Other U.S. officials said that multiple people have been tested for concussions, and the number of injuries could rise further. Why did this attack cause so many casualties among the US military?
According to the U.S. official, the attack took place in the early hours of Jan. 28, when a large number of U.S. soldiers were resting and the attack hit closer to the barracks. Therefore, to summarize briefly, there are three main reasons for the relatively large casualties caused by this attack.
First, the anti-American forces chose to attack in the early hours of the morning. At this time, most American GIs were crammed into dormitories in their pajamas, making them vulnerable to concentrated killing. On weekdays, it would not be so easy to kill and injure so many people at once if the heavily armed American GIs were dressed in body armor and in a scattered combat formation.
Second, the anti-US forces that launched the attack calculated that the US military had no intention. Although the IRGC's missile attack in January 2020 was also launched in the early hours of the morning, the US military did not suffer many casualties because the US military was prepared for Iranian retaliation after the killing of Soleimani. The U.S. military base that was hit at the time was mainly Assad Air Base, and the U.S. military said a total of 10 ballistic missiles hit the base. In preparation for an Iranian attack, the U.S. military's Global Hawk drones were monitoring the base from the air. There were 60 planes on the tarmac of the base in normal times, and when the attack occurred, more than 50 of them were transferred to other US military bases in the Middle East, and all the planes and personnel that were not transferred were also hiding in bunkers.
As for the attack that just happened, the US military obviously had no way to prepare for it in advance. According to incomplete statistics from foreign media, since the outbreak of a new round of Palestinian-Israeli conflict in October 2023 alone, the US military in the Middle East has been attacked by various anti-US forces no less than 100 times, so they cannot predict when and where the anti-US forces will attack, so they can only wait passively. And under such a high-frequency and long-term attack, no army can be ready for battle at all times, otherwise it will be difficult to withstand both physical and psychological attacks.
In addition to the above two reasons, there is also a great element of luck that the anti-American forces were able to achieve such an attack. There are many facilities in the US military base that was attacked, and the barracks only occupy a small area, but this attack happened to hit the vicinity of the barracks, which can only be said to be the will of God.
The attack also highlights a common military dilemma facing all countries today. According to the U.S. Central Command, the equipment used by the anti-American forces to attack U.S. military bases is drones. But they did not say what model of the drone, we can only speculate. At present, most of the anti-American forces in the Middle East have changed their guns, not only multi-rotor UAVs, but also many small fixed-wing UAVs. Judging by the power of this attack, it is more likely that small fixed-wing drones will be used. This is enough to show that even if the US military has bases all over the world and has a lot of experience in law and order warfare, it lacks effective defense means against low, slow and small targets such as small UAVs. The radar of traditional air defense systems is mainly aimed at large high-speed targets, and low-speed small targets are usually ignored in order to avoid interference from flying objects such as birds.
Moreover, even if the radar system is improved and the above problems are solved, the interceptor missiles of traditional air defense systems are expensive, and it is obviously an extremely poor economic behavior to deal with cheap small UAVs. Israel's Iron Dome to intercept Hamas rockets has never been a good deal. The rest of the defenses, such as electronic jamming and anti-drone guns, are not mature and reliable, at least for now, and have limited effectiveness. Therefore, how to defend against small UAV attacks is still an urgent problem to be solved.
As to who carried out the attack? I don't know if he didn't want to make things too big, originally Biden did not mention the specific organization that launched the attack, but only claimed that the attack was planned and carried out by Iranian-backed anti-American forces, and said vaguely that the US military intelligence service is still collecting information about the attack. However, contrary to the whirling statements of the US military, the anti-US forces that launched the attack voluntarily admitted the incident. Iraq's Islamic Resistance Group announced that they had carried out the attack, saying that it had attacked three US military bases in the attack, and that this base was only one of them. Since the end of 2023, Iraq's Islamic Resistance Group has repeatedly used drones and rockets to launch attacks on multiple US military bases in the Middle East, but it has not achieved much success, so it is not well known. The attack finally brought the group to everyone's attention.
In addition, the US Central Command admitted that this is the first time that the US military has suffered casualties in the Middle East since the current round of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The attack took place at "a military base in northeastern Jordan near the Syrian border".
However, the Americans' narrative was quickly swollen by a slap in the face. The Jordanian government stated that "the attack did not take place in Jordanian territory, but the Tanf base of the US military in Syria".
Why does the US military not want to admit that the attack was carried out in Syria? Because the US military presence in Syria has always been illegal and has never been invited by the Syrian government. The United States itself knows that this is illegal, and has always been embarrassed to directly admit that there is a military base in Syria.
Located on the border between Syria and Jordan, the Tanf base has been in existence for eight years since the United States began controlling and supporting Syrian rebels in 2016.
How will the US military react to this attack? Biden declared that the US military will retaliate at the right time and in an appropriate way. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin made similar threats against the attackers. Judging from the various statements made by the US side, it seems that they do not want to make a big fuss about the matter, because after all, the strategic situation facing the United States is not optimistic. Now, it is facing strategic pressure from China and Russia around the world, and there is a confrontation between Texas and the central government at home. Even in the Middle East alone, the Iranian-led arc of resistance has put enormous pressure on the U.S. military.
Therefore, in the face of the Houthis in the Red Sea, the US military has always been thundering and raining. For American politicians, the lives of American GIs, while more valuable than those of allied soldiers, are less valuable than those of strategic interests. For the sake of the lives of a few ordinary soldiers, they risk a full-scale confrontation with the arc of resistance, and it is not very likely that they will fight with the anti-American forces. However, domestic and international public opinion cannot be ignored, so the US military is likely to take limited retaliatory methods, such as sending a few fighter jets, or launching a few cruise missiles, and blowing up a few tents of anti-US forces.
In the end, how do you evaluate this matter? I can probably only describe it in one sentence, that is: the world has been bitter and beautiful for a long time, and people of insight have all risen up and rebelled against it.