1 UNITED STATES
Drone attack kills three troops on US base in Jordan
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin vowed on Monday to take “all necessary actions” to defend US troops after Iran-backed militants killed three US troops and wounded dozens more in a drone attack on a US base in Jordan.
“The president and I will not tolerate attacks on US forces, and we will take all necessary actions to defend the US and our troops,” Austin (pictured) said.
The statement came as US officials told the Associated Press that the enemy drone – which also wounded dozens of people at the desert outpost – might have been confused with an American drone returning to the US installation.
The Pentagon named the three troops killed in the attack as army reservists Sgt William Jerome Rivers, Spc Breonna Alexsondria Moffett and Spc Kennedy Sanders.
The attack last Sunday was the first deadly strike against US troops since the Israel-Hamas war erupted in October, and marks a major escalation in tensions.
Qatar’s prime minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, said he hoped any US retaliation would not undercut progress towards a new Israel-Hamas hostage release deal.
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2 FRANCE
Government warns farmers over ‘siege’ of Paris market
The government told farmers that any action to block access to Paris’s main market for fresh food would be crossing a red line as a tractor protest blockaded the city this week, stopping traffic on eight main motorways into the capital in a row over
