Joe Biden is vowing to respond to a drone attack that killed US soldiers. What are his options?
Joe Biden has promised the US will “respond” to the attack on Tower 22, which left three US military personnel dead and dozens wounded.
The problem is that the US has already been responding to attack after attack on its bases in the Middle East – and has nevertheless failed to deter them.
There have been more than 160 so far.
Middle East latest: Biden decides on drone attack response
There have been more than 160 attacks on US bases in the Middle East. Source: ACLED
And the US has retaliated to those – the graphic below shows their attacks since 27 October.
US attacks since 27 October. Source: ACLED
They already include strikes against bases operated by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – the regime’s most powerful military force – rather than proxy militias.
Defence and security analyst Professor Michael Clarke said: “What the Americans were trying to do was be very graduated in their response – always to respond to individual attacks with another retaliation on the place where the attack came from.
“It obviously has led the Iranians to feel that they can keep on pushing America. So, I think the fact American service personnel have been killed has crossed a line.
“The Americans now have got to decide if they need to take a step up in terms of their response.”
Military base known as Tower 22 in northeastern Jordan where three US soldiers were killed in drone attack. Pic: Planet Labs PBC via AP
Would a response that included sanctions or perhaps a cyberattack really be a step up?
Many Iranian officials are already under sanctions and there is domestic pressure on Mr Biden to go further.
Professor Clarke suggests that another option would be to target Iranian ships in the Red Sea and connecting waters: “The Americans might regard that as a sensible target since they’re all part of the Iran’s attempts to create a crisis for America.”
IRGC fast boats operate regularly in the Strait of Hormuz and have seized oil tankers in the past.
Earlier this month, Iran also announced that its warship Alborz, a frigate, had entered the Red Sea.
Drone attacks on shipping. Source: Sky News Analysis
There’s also the Behshad.
The ship officially carries cargo but military analysts say it carries out surveillance that has been vital for all the Houthi attacks – another Iranian-backed militia that forms part of the same so-called “axis of resistance”.
Those would be Iranian assets, but still outside Iran. Further up the escalation ladder would be an attack on Iranian territory itself.
That could be limited to the coast, perhaps. Or they could strike the interior – perhaps even on nuclear facilities.
That is the very top of the ladder – and the US would not start there, if only to give itself room to climb in the future.
On Monday, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said that his country “does not welcome the expansion of conflicts in the region”.
And Mr Biden said on Tuesday that “we don’t need a wider war in the Middle East” but he had decided on an unspecified response.
Others would argue that, with the death of US military personnel, the wider war is already here.
New pictures show the moment of impact as an Israeli missile hit a Beirut apartment block and exploded.
The block was one of five buildings destroyed by airstrikes on Friday alone.
Israel launched airstrikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut in a fourth consecutive day of intense attacks.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press photographer captured a sequence of images showing an Israeli bomb approaching and hitting a multi-storey apartment building in Beirut’s Tayouneh area.
Richard Weir, a senior crisis, conflict and arms researcher at Human Rights Watch, reviewed the close-up photos to determine what type of weapon was used.
“The bomb and components visible in the photographs, including the strake, wire harness cover, and tail fin section, are consistent with a Mk-84 series 2,000-pound class general purpose bomb equipped with Boeing’s joint directed attack munition tail kit,” he told AP.
Pics: AP
Smoke covers a building that collapses following the strike. Pic: AP
Deadly strikes as bombardment stepped up
Israel stepped up its bombardment this week – an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy towards a ceasefire.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. It issued a warning on social media identifying buildings ahead of the strikes.
Meanwhile, an Israeli airstrike killed five members of the same family in a home in Ain Qana in the southern province of Nabatiyeh, Lebanon’s state media said.
The report said a mother, father and their three children were killed but didn’t provide their ages.
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Three other Israeli strikes killed six people and wounded 32 in different parts of Tyre province on Friday, also in south Lebanon, the report said.
Video footage also showed a building being struck and turning into a cloud of rubble and debris that billowed into Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
Residents check the site of the airstrike in Tayouneh, Beirut. Pic: AP
More than 3,200 people have been killed in Lebanon during 13 months of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah – most of them since mid-September.
About 27% of those killed were women and children, according to Lebanon’s health ministry.
Israel dramatically escalated its bombardment of Lebanon from September, vowing to cripple Hezbollah and end its barrages in Israel.
Friday’s strikes come as Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister has asked Iran to help secure a ceasefire in the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
The prime minister appeared to urge Ali Larijani, a top adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, to convince the militant group to agree to a deal that could require it to pull back from the Israel-Lebanon border.
Iran is a main backer of Hezbollah and for decades has been funding and arming the Lebanese militant group.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, said that prospects for a ceasefire with Lebanon were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire to deliver an early foreign policy win to his ally, US President-elect Donald Trump.
“Super high-IQ revolutionaries” who are willing to work 80+ hours a week are being urged to join Elon Musk’s new cost-cutting department in Donald Trump’s incoming US government.
The X and Tesla owner will co-lead the Department Of Government Efficiency (DOGE) with former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy.
And in a post on X, the official DOGE account put out a call to arms for people to sign up and help “dismantle government bureaucracy”.
The post said: “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE.
“We don’t need more part-time idea generators.
“We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants.”
Read more:
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Trump’s cabinet signals tough stance on China
Elon Musk speaking at an event held at Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate. Pic: AP Photo/Alex Brandon
In a reply to an interested party, Mr Musk suggested the lucky applicants would be working for free.
“Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lost of enemies & compensation is zero,” the world’s richest man wrote.
“What a great deal!”
When announcing the new department, President-elect Donald Trump said Mr Musk and Mr Ramaswamy “will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.
Mr Musk has previously made clear his desire to see cuts to “government waste” and in a post on his X platform suggested he could axe as many as three-quarters of the more than 400 federal departments in the US, writing: “99 is enough.”
At least 10 people have been killed after a fire broke out at a retirement home in northern Spain in the early hours of this morning, officials have said.
A further two people were seriously injured in the blaze at the residence in the town of Villafranca de Ebro in Zaragoza, according to the Spanish news website Diario Sur.
Two people remain in a critical condition following the blaze. Pic: AP
They remain in a critical condition, while several others received treatment for smoke inhalation.
Firefighters were alerted to the blaze at the residence – the Jardines de Villafranca – at 5am (4am UK time) on Friday.
Several residents were treated for smoke inhalation. Pic: AP
Those who were killed in the fire died from smoke inhalation, Spanish newspaper Heraldo reported.
The residence is home to 82 elderly residents.
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The blaze started in one of the rooms, Fernando Beltran, the national government’s top official in the region, told reporters.
All of the victims were elderly residents, he added.
Relatives wait for news outside the care home. Pic: AP
Fire crews, paramedics and police officers remain on site, said a spokesperson for the regional government of Aragon who confirmed the fatalities.
It took firefighters several hours to extinguish the blaze, they said.
The cause of the fire is unknown and is being investigated.
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