The deaths of three U.S. soldiers in a drone strike in Jordan — the first-known American military fatalities from hostile fire in the widening Middle East crisis — are likely to increase pressure on President Biden, who has tried to limit the American response in order to keep regional tensions from spreading further.
The Biden administration said that the strike at a remote military outpost near the Syrian border — which also injured 34 other service members — was carried out by “radical Iran-backed militant groups operating in Syria and Iraq.”
As Mr. Biden warned that the United States would respond, American officials said that the deaths will require a different level of action from what the White House has ordered in the nearly four months since Israel’s war with Hamas sparked broader turmoil in the Middle East.
What remained unclear was whether Mr. Biden would strike targets inside Iran itself, as his Republican critics urged him to do, with one saying he would be a “coward” if he did not.
A spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Nasser Kanaani, said at a news conference on Monday that the militias “do not take orders” from Iran and act independently to oppose “any aggression and occupation.” He said that accusations that Iran had ordered the strike were “baseless,” and blamed Israel and the United States for fueling instability in the region.
