JERUSALEM (AP) — A little-discussed U.S. military desert outpost in the far reaches of northeastern Jordan has become the focus of international attention after a drone attack killed three American troops and injured at least 34 others there.

The base, known as Tower 22, sits near the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria along a sandy, bulldozed berm marking the DMZ’s southern edge. The Iraqi border is only 10 kilometers (6 miles) away.

The area is known as Rukban, a vast arid region that once saw a refugee camp spring up on the Syrian side over the rise of the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate in 2014.

At its height, over 100,000 people lived there, blocked by Jordan from coming across into the kingdom at the time over concerns about infiltration by the extremist group. Those concerns grew out of a 2016 car bomb attack there that killed seven Jordanian border guards

The camp has dwindled in the time since to some 7,500 people because of a lack of supplies reaching there, according to United Nations estimates.

The base began as a Jordanian outpost watching the border, then saw an increased U.S. presence there after American forces entered Syria in late 2015. The small installation includes U.S. engineering, aviation, logistics and security troops with about 350 U.S. Army and Air Force personnel deployed there.

The base’s location offers a site for American forces to infiltrate and quietly leave Syria. A small American garrison at al-Tanf in Syria is just 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Tower 22. That base is along a Syrian highway leading into Iraq and ultimately Mosul, once a prominent base of the Islamic State group. It’s also a potential weapons shipment route over the road for Iran.

U.S. troops long have used Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as a basing point. Some 3,000 American troops typically are stationed across Jordan.

However, the U.S. presence in Jordan risks angering a population that’s already held mass demonstrations against Israel’s war on Hamas in the Gaza Strip over civilian casualties in a conflict that’s already killed over 26,000 Palestinians. Estimates suggest some 3 million of Jordan’s 11.5 million people are Palestinian.

Widespread unrest could threaten the rule of King Abdullah II, a key American ally. Jordan initially denied the Tower 22 base existed within its border after the attack Sunday.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Joe Biden ordered the United States military to carry out retaliatory airstrikes against Iranian-backed militia groups after three U.S. service members were injured in a drone attack in northern Iraq.

National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said one of the U.S. troops suffered critical injuries in the attack that occurred earlier Monday. The Iranian-backed militia Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, under an umbrella of Iranian-backed militants, claimed credit for the attack that utilized a one-way attack drone.

Iraqi officials said that U.S. strikes targeting militia sites early Tuesday killed one militant and wounded 18. They came at a time of heightened fears of a regional spillover of the Israel-Hamas war.

Iran announced Monday that an Israeli strike on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus killed one of its top generals, Seyed Razi Mousavi, who had been a close companion of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the former head of Iran’s elite Quds Force. Soleimani was slain in a U.S. drone strike in Iraq in January 2020.

Iranian officials vowed revenge for the killing of Mousavi, but didn’t immediately launch a retaliatory strike. The militia attack Monday in northern Iraq was launched prior to the strike in Syria that killed Mousavi.

Biden, who was spending Christmas at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, was alerted to the attack by White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan shortly after it occurred Monday and ordered the Pentagon and his top national security aides to prepare response options to the attack on an air base used by American troops in Irbil.

Sullivan consulted with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Biden’s deputy national security adviser, Jon Finer, was with the president at Camp David and convened top aides to review options, according to a U.S. official, who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and requested anonymity.

Within hours, Biden convened his national security team for a call in which Austin and Gen. CQ Brown, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, briefed Biden on the response options. Biden opted to target three locations used by Kataib Hezbollah and affiliated groups, the official said.

The U.S. strikes were carried out at about 4:45 a.m. Tuesday in Iraq, less than 13 hours after the U.S. personnel were attacked. According to U.S. Central Command, the retaliatory strikes on the three sites “destroyed the targeted facilities and likely killed a number of Kataib Hezbollah militants.”

“The President places no higher priority than the protection of American personnel serving in harm’s way,” Watson said. “The United States will act at a time and in a manner of our choosing should these attacks continue.”

The latest attack on U.S. troops follows months of escalating threats and actions against American forces in the region since the Oct. 7 Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza.

The dangerous back-and-forth strikes have escalated since Iranian-backed militant groups under the umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq and Syria began striking U.S. facilities Oct. 17, the date that a blast at a hospital in Gaza killed hundreds. Iranian-backed militias have carried out more than 100 attacks on U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria since the start of the Israel-Hamas war more than two months ago.

In November, U.S. fighter jets struck a Kataib Hezbollah operations center and command and control node, following a short-range ballistic missile attack on U.S. forces at Al-Assad Air Base in western Iraq. Iranian-backed militias also carried out a drone attack at the same air base in October, causing minor injuries.

The U.S. has also blamed Iran, which has funded and trained the Hamas group, for attacks by Yemen’s Houthi militants against commercial and military vessels through a critical shipping choke point in the Red Sea.

The Biden administration has sought to prevent the Israel-Hamas war from spiraling into a wider regional conflict that either opens up new fronts of Israeli fighting or draws the U.S. in directly. The administration’s measured response — where not every attempt on American troops has been met with a counterattack — has drawn criticism from Republicans.

The U.S. has thousands of troops in Iraq training Iraqi forces and combating remnants of the Islamic State group, and hundreds in Syria, mostly on the counter-IS mission. They have come under dozens of attacks, though as yet none fatal, since the war began on Oct. 7, with the U.S. attributing responsibility to Iran-backed groups.

“While we do not seek to escalate conflict in the region, we are committed and fully prepared to take further necessary measures to protect our people and our facilities,” Austin said in a statement.

The clashes put the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani in a delicate position. He came to power in 2022 with the backing of a coalition of Iranian-backed parties, some of which are associated with the same militias launching the attacks on U.S. bases.

A group of Iranian-backed militias known as the Popular Mobilization Forces were key in the fight against Islamic State militants after the extremist group overran much of Iraq in 2014. The PMF is officially under the command of the Iraqi army, but in practice the militias operate independently.

In a statement Tuesday, Sudani condemned both the militia attack in Irbil and the U.S. response.

Attacks on “foreign diplomatic mission headquarters and sites hosting military advisers from friendly nations … infringe upon Iraq’s sovereignty and are deemed unacceptable under any circumstances,” the statement said.

However, it added that that the retaliatory strikes by the U.S. on “Iraqi military sites” — referring to the militia — “constitute a clear hostile act.” Sudani said some of those injured in the strikes were civilians.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The United States should look at the development of more bases in Eastern Europe to protect against Russian aggression, but rotate forces through them rather than make permanent deployments, the top U.S military officer told Congress on Tuesday.

Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the basing could be funded by other countries such as Poland and the Baltics that want more U.S. troops. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said any effort to expand security in Eastern Europe is a “work in progress” that probably will be discussed at the NATO summit in June.

Milley and Austin were testifying before the House Armed Services Committee on the 2023 budget proposal, but much of the focus of the hearing was the Russian war against Ukraine and what the U.S. can do to better help Ukraine and strengthen security across Europe.

Milley was asked about the need to reallocate forces to Europe’s eastern flank, where NATO allies are worried that they may be Russia’s next target.

“My advice would be to create permanent bases but don’t permanently station (forces), so you get the effect of permanence by rotational forces cycling through permanent bases,” he said. “I believe that a lot of our European allies, especially those such as the Baltics or Poland and Romania, and elsewhere — they’re very, very willing to establish permanent bases. They’ll build them, they’ll pay for them.”

Austin added that he recently visited and spoke with leaders in the Baltics, noting that they made it clear they value U.S. troops there. “We’ll continue to work with NATO to assess what the requirements will be moving forward,” Austin said. “We will be part of that solution.”

The Pentagon is continuing to review its troop numbers across Europe, and whether to add more or shift some of those already there to other locations. Milley said Tuesday that while there are no decisions yet, there’s a possibility, if not a probability” of increase U.S. troops in Europe, and that need could be filled by rotational forces.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg announced last month that NATO is creating four new battlegroups, which usually number between 1,000 troops and 1,500 troops, to send to Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. NATO allies are set to discuss additional security measures at the upcoming summit.

Milley has advocated using rotational forces more around the globe to defray the costs of permanently stationing troops and their families in allied countries at risk of war, such as South Korea and in the Persian Gulf. He said using this would eliminate some of the costs associated with schools, housing and other such services.

Rotational forces deploy for shorter periods of time. Permanent forces are often deployed for two years to three years.

Milley also agreed that Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine, and its ongoing demands that the U.S. and NATO reduce troops and arms in European countries along Russia’s borders, signal a lengthy conflict in the region that extends beyond Ukraine.

“I do think this is a very protracted conflict and I think it’s at least measured in years. I don’t know about decades, but at least years for sure,” said Milley. “I think that NATO, the United States, Ukraine and all of the allies and partners that are supporting Ukraine are going to be involved in this for quite some time.”

Austin added that the broad Russian demands were not acceptable to NATO, and the U.S. is looking at ways to provide additional aid and training to countries, including non-NATO allies such as Georgia and Finland.

Members of Congress pressed Austin and Milley on what could have stopped Russia from invading Ukraine, and that sanctions did not work as a deterrent.

Both said that the only possible way to deter Russian may have been to put U.S. troops on the ground inside Ukraine, but that option was rejected because it risked a broader U.S. war with Russia. Milley said he isn’t sure Russian President Vladimir Putin was deterrable since invading Ukraine has been a long-term goal for Moscow.

Milley and Austin also told the committee that the U.S. has learned a number of things as it has watched Russia struggle to fight against an unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian defense over the past month. They said Russia has significant military capabilities but has been unable to use them effectively.

Austin said Russian forces lack training among their noncommissioned officers and the Kremlin has been unable to get the supplies and logistics needed to ground troops

Austin said Ukraine has used Stinger and Javelin missiles effectively against Russian troops and weapons. Milley said that Ukraine’s junior officers, many trained by the U.S., have shown initiative and good command and control abilities.

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. military reported its biggest day of evacuation flights out of Afghanistan by far on Monday, but deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban signaled they might soon seek to shut down the evacuation.

Twenty-eight U.S. military flights ferried about 10,400 people to safety out of Taliban-held Afghanistan over the 24 hours that ended early Monday morning, a White House official said. The chief Pentagon spokesman, John Kirby, said the faster pace of evacuation was due in part to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport.

“Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban,” Kirby said. “What we’ve seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport.”

With access still difficult, the U.S. military went beyond the airport to carry out another helicopter retrieval of Americans. U.S. officials said a military helicopter picked up 16 American citizens Monday and brought them onto the airfield for evacuation. This was at least the second such rescue mission beyond the airport; Kirby said that last Thursday, three Army helicopters picked up 169 Americans near a hotel just beyond the airport gate and flew them onto the airfield.

President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said at the White House that talks with the Taliban are continuing as the administration looks for additional ways to safely move more Americans and others into the Kabul airport.

“We are in talks with the Taliban on a daily basis through both political and security channels,” he said, adding that ultimately it will be Biden’s decision alone whether to continue military-led evacuation operations beyond Aug. 31.

In a reminder of the urgency felt amid a dizzying array of security threats to the evacuation effort, the Pentagon posted a video of a laser near the airport targeting a U.S. Air Force C-17 aircraft and apparently attempting to disrupt the pilot during landing.

After more than a week of evacuations plagued by major obstacles, including Taliban forces and crushing crowds that are making approaching the airport difficult and dangerous, the number of people flown out met — and exceeded — U.S. projections for the first time. The count was more than twice the 3,900 flown out in the previous 24 hours on U.S. military planes.

Army Gen. Stephen Lyons, head of U.S. Transportation Command, which manages the military aircraft that are executing the Kabul airlift, told a Pentagon news conference that more than 200 planes are involved, including aerial refueling planes, and that arriving planes are spending less than an hour on the tarmac at Kabul before loading and taking off. He said the nonstop mission is taking a toll on aircrews.

“They’re tired,” Lyons said of the crews. “They’re probably exhausted in some cases.”

On a more positive note, Lyons said that in addition to the widely reported case of an Afghan woman giving birth aboard a U.S. evacuation aircraft, two other babies have been born in similar circumstances. He did not provide details.

The Pentagon said it has added a fourth U.S. military base, in New Jersey, to three others — in Virginia, Texas and Wisconsin — that are prepared to temporarily house arriving Afghans. Maj. Gen. Hank Williams, the Joint Staff deputy director for regional operations, told reporters there are now about 1,200 Afghans at those military bases. The four bases combined are capable of housing up to 25,000 evacuees, Kirby said.

Afghan evacuees continued to arrive at Dulles International Airport outside of Washington. A bus carried some of the latest arrivals from Dulles airport to another site for what would be one of many processing stops before they reach new homes in the United States.

Exhaustion clouded the faces of many of the adults. How does it feel to be here, a journalist asked one man. “We are safe,” he answered.

An older woman sank with relief into an offered wheelchair, and a little girl carried by an older boy shaded her eyes to look curiously around. It was an interim stop for what had been a grueling struggle over days for many to get flights out of what is now Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. The scramble to evacuate left most arrivals carrying only a bookbag or purse, or a plastic shopping bag of belongings. Some arrived for their new lives entirely empty-handed.

Biden said Sunday he would not rule out extending the evacuation beyond Aug. 31, the date he had set for completing the withdrawal of troops. And British Prime Minister Boris Johnson plans to press Biden for an extension to get out the maximum number of foreigners and Afghan allies possible. Biden is to face the U.S.’s G-7 allies in a virtual summit on Afghanistan Tuesday.

Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen, in an interview with Sky News, said that Aug. 31 is a “red line” the U.S. must not cross and that extending the American presence would “provoke a reaction.”

Since the Taliban seized the capital Aug. 15, completing a stunning rout of the U.S.-backed Afghan government and military, the U.S. has been carrying out the evacuation in coordination with the Taliban, who have held off on attacking under a 2020 withdrawal deal with the Trump administration.

Monday’s warning signaled the Taliban could insist on shutting down the airlifts out of the Kabul airport in just over a week. Lawmakers, refugee groups, veterans’ organizations and U.S. allies have said ending the evacuation then could strand countless Afghans and foreigners still hoping for flights out.

Since Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated and facilitated the evacuation of about 37,000 people.

A firefight just outside the airport killed at least one Afghan soldier early Monday, German officials said. It was the latest in days of often-lethal turmoil outside the airport. People coming in hopes of escaping Taliban rule face sporadic gunfire, beatings by the Taliban, and crowds that have trampled many.

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