White House: U.S. not seeking war with Iran after Jordan attack

The White House said Monday that the United States will not go to war with Iran after three U.S. soldiers were killed in the Middle East in a drone attack the Joe Biden administration attributed to Iran-backed militias.

"We are not looking for a war with Iran," John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council, told reporters during a regular press briefing at the White House, saying that the United States is "not looking to escalate" the situation following the "escalatory" attack resulting in first U.S. fatalities since the start of the Israeli-Hamas conflict on October 7.

"It requires a response, make no mistake about that. I will not get ahead of the president's decision-making," Kirby said.

In a written statement on Sunday, Biden vowed that the United States will take action to hold those responsible for the attack to account "at a time and in a manner (of) our choosing."

Kirby's remarks were later echoed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

"We want to prevent this conflict from spreading, so we are intent on doing both, that is standing up for our people when they're attacked, while at the same time working every single day to prevent the conflict from growing and spreading," Blinken said during a press availability at the U.S. Department of State attended by visiting NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

However, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed that the U.S. would take "all necessary actions" to defend its troops after the deadly drone attack.

"The president and I will not tolerate attacks on U.S. forces and we will take all necessary actions to defend the U.S. and our troops," Austin said at the start of a meeting with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg at the Pentagon.

Three U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 40 others were wounded in the drone attack on Saturday night U.S. Eastern Time targeting U.S. forces stationed in northeast Jordan near the border with Syria, according to an update from Deputy Pentagon Press Secretary Sabrina Singh at a separate press conference on Monday.

The Pentagon on Monday identified the three fallen soldiers, all of whom were members of a U.S. Army Reserve unit.

Citing anonymous officials, U.S. media reported on Monday that the reason why the one-way attack drone slipped the U.S. defenses to successfully counter-attack, was because the U.S. personnel confused the "enemy drone" with one of their own returning to the U.S. base from a surveillance mission.

"I can't corroborate those accounts by U.S. officials," Kirby said at the White House briefing when pressed to explain the possible cause. "The Department of Defense is, as you would expect them to do, going through all the forensics here to figure out exactly what happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again."

Jordanian Minister of Government Communications Muhannad Mubaidin denied U.S.' claims on Sunday, saying that the attack targeting U.S. forces near the Syrian border did not occur inside Jordan.

Mubaidin told the state-run Al Mamlaka TV that the attack targeted the al-Tanf base in southeastern Syria.

The attack, and any potential U.S. response, is likely to fan fears of wider conflict in the Middle East, where the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli offensive on the enclave has reached 26,637 since the conflict began on October 7, 2023, according to the latest data from Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza.

In a press statement, the ministry said that Israeli forces killed 215 Palestinians and wounded 300 more in the past 24 hours, adding that the total number of wounded Palestinians since the start of the conflict was at least 65,387.

The ministry said that many victims were still trapped under the rubble, but ambulances and civil defense crews could not reach them.

Meanwhile, in the occupied West Bank, Israeli gunfire killed at least five Palestinians on Monday, according to the Health Ministry run by the Palestinian Authority.

It said that two young men were shot dead by Israeli soldiers in Dura village near Hebron city in the southern West Bank, where Israeli forces conducted a raid and clashed with Palestinians.

Another young man died of his wounds from Israeli gunfire during a similar raid in the town of Silwad near Ramallah in the central West Bank, the ministry said. It also reported the killing of two more Palestinians from Bethlehem and Jenin during confrontations with Israeli troops.

(With input from agencies)