World waits as Joe Biden makes no secret of plan to attack Iran-backed groups

There was also speculation the US would target an Iranian warship deployed in the Red Sea, the IRIS Alborz.

The signalling fits with Biden’s desire to send a message to Tehran, which the US accuses of funding groups that have launched dozens of attacks on American bases and personnel in the region.

At the same time, he wants to avoid fanning a conflict that began when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 and Israeli forces responded with a devastating military campaign in the Gaza Strip.

Iran to ‘decisively respond’ to any US strike, Biden mulls Jordan attack response

“It’s quite odd that the administration has been so open about saying what they’re going to do, how they’re going to do it,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “It seems to me that it violates all of the things that we all know about successful military operations.”

In a press conference Thursday, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin parried a question about whether the US warnings had prompted Iranian advisers to leave Syria, and whether all the signalling was an effort to make sure no Iranians are killed when the strikes occur.

“In terms of telegraphing about strikes and whether or not people leave or would’ve left, I won’t speculate on any of that,” Austin said. “I would just tell you that we will have a multi-tiered response.”

He acknowledged that the US wants to “hold the right people accountable” while avoiding a wider war. The usually staid Austin also indulged in a rare moment of muscle-flexing in warning about what was to come.

“They have a lot of capability,” he said of Iran’s proxies. “I have a lot more. We’re going to do what’s necessary to protect our troops and our interests.”

The administration also wants to make sure that any strikes don’t jeopardise negotiations between the US, Qatar, Egypt, Israel and Hamas to achieve a ceasefire in exchange for releasing hostages.

Achieving that goal is paramount because any halt in the violence would ease regional tensions and likely dissuade some of Iran’s proxies from attacking US forces.

The administration signalling was also a reminder of how the strikes must factor in politics as well as national security as an election year kicks off. Biden has come under intense pressure from Republicans to take strong action, up to attacks directly on Iranian assets or territory.

Biden visited Michigan on Thursday to shore up union support in a key battleground – and one where the Gaza conflict is a liability. Michigan has a large Muslim-American and Arab-American population where opposition to Israel’s operations in Gaza are stronger.

What are US troops doing in the Middle East and where are they?

The state’s representative, congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, who didn’t join Biden during his trip, has accused him of supporting a genocide.

Senator Chris Coons, a Delaware Democrat who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said he expected “forceful strikes against a series of targets throughout the region that are Iranian proxies”.

“That’s the sort of course we’re likely to see and I think that’s proportional and a justified response,” he told MSNBC.

CBS News reported Thursday that the US has approved plans for strikes over several days in Iraq and Syria, including on Iranian personnel and facilities.

Reports like that one prompted pushback from National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, although he’s repeatedly foreshadowed strikes and said there would be more than one.

“I can’t speak for why certain officials think it’s in anybody’s best interest to go out there and be speculating in public with anonymity about military operations in the future,” Kirby told reporters Thursday. “I think that’s highly irresponsible.”

Attack drone that killed US troops in Jordan mistaken for US drone: report

Biden on Friday will oversee the return to the United States of the bodies of the three American soldiers who were killed in last Saturday’s drone attack in Jordan. Dozens more were injured.

The bodies of William Jerome Rivers, Kennedy Ladon Sanders and Breonna Alexsondria Moffett will arrive at an air force base in Dover, Delaware, where they will be received with military honours.

The White House has said a militia called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq was behind the drone attack on a base in Jordan, known as Tower 22, near the Syrian border. The US has assessed that Iran manufactured the drone used in the attack, four US officials told Reuters.

The US president previously received bodies at the base following the August 26, 2021 bombing at the Kabul airport, during the US pull-out from Afghanistan.

Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse and Reuters