Slightly-discussed US army desert outpost within the far reaches of northeastern Jordan has develop into the main target of worldwide consideration after a drone assault killed three American troopers and injured no less than 34 others there.
The base, generally known as Tower 22, sits close to the demilitarized zone on the border between Jordan and Syria alongside a sandy, bulldozed berm marking the DMZ’s southern edge. The Iraqi border is barely 6 miles away.
The space is called Rukban, an enormous arid area that after noticed a refugee camp spring up on the Syrian facet over the rise of the Islamic State group’s so-called caliphate in 2014.
3 AMERICAN TROOPS KILLED, 25 INJURED IN ATTACK ON JORDAN BASE NEAR SYRIA BORDER
At its peak, over 100,000 individuals lived there, blocked by Jordan from coming throughout into the dominion on the time over issues about infiltration by the extremist group. Those issues grew out of a 2016 automotive bomb assault there that killed seven Jordanian border guards.
The camp has dwindled within the time since to some 7,500 individuals due to a scarcity of provides reaching there, in accordance with United Nations estimates.
Jordanian troopers patrol the border with Syria to stop drug trafficking on Feb. 17, 2022. Tower 22 is situated close to the southern fringe of the demilitarized zone between Jordan and Syria. (KHALIL MAZRAAWI/AFP by way of Getty Images)
The base started as a Jordanian outpost watching the border, then noticed an elevated US presence there after American forces entered Syria in late 2015. The small set up consists of US engineering, aviation, logistics and safety troops with about 350 US Army and Air Force personnel deployed there.
The base’s location gives a web site for American forces to infiltrate and quietly go away Syria. A small American garrison at al-Tanf in Syria is simply 12 miles north of Tower 22. That base is alongside a Syrian freeway main into Iraq and in the end Mosul, as soon as a distinguished base of the Islamic State group. It’s additionally a possible weapons cargo route over the street for Iran.
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US troops have lengthy used Jordan, a kingdom bordering Iraq, Israel, the Palestinian territory of the West Bank, Saudi Arabia and Syria, as a basing level. Some 3,000 American troops are sometimes stationed throughout Jordan.
However, the US presence in Jordan dangers angering a inhabitants that is already held mass demonstrations in opposition to Israel’s battle on Hamas within the Gaza Strip over civilian casualties in a battle that is already killed over 26,000 Palestinians. Estimates counsel some 3 million of Jordan’s 11.5 million persons are Palestinian.
Widespread unrest might threaten the rule of King Abdullah II, a key American ally. Jordan initially denied that the Tower 22 base existed inside its borders after the assault on Sunday.