WASHINGTON: A defective drone in Iraq may have helped keep America from being dragged deeper into a widening Middle East conflict.
The drone, which was launched at the Erbil air base by an Iranian-backed militia before sunrise on Oct 26, penetrated US air defences and crashed into the second floor of the barracks housing American troops at about 5am, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.
But the device laden with explosives failed to detonate and in the end, only one service member suffered a concussion from the impact, said the officials, who asked to remain anonymous to speak freely about the attack. The US had got lucky, they added, as the drone could have caused carnage had it exploded.
The incident was among at least 40 separate drone and rocket attacks that have been launched at US forces by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq and Syria over the past three weeks in response to American support for Israel in the Gaza war, according to Pentagon data and the two US officials.
The bombardment has only caused a few dozen minor injuries so far, with many of the rockets and one-way attack drones intercepted by US air defences in Iraq and Syria, where a total of 3,400 American troops are based.
David Schenker, a former US assistant secretary of state at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy think-tank, cautioned that while neither Iran and its allied groups nor the US appeared to want a direct confrontation, the risks were growing. The possibility of a major strike that draws America into a conflict is “a very realistic concern”, he said.
“I think they are calibrating the attacks to harass rather than kill en masse US troops,” he said of Iraqi and Syrian militias. “But there’s a lot more they can do.”
It’s unclear how President Joe Biden would respond to a major attack that kills a large number of Americans. Struggling in opinion polls ahead of next year’s presidential election, Biden has so far sought to limit the US role in the conflict mostly to ensuring military aid to Israel.
The war broke out when gunmen from Hamas – the Iranian-funded militant group that rules the Palestinian enclave of Gaza – burst into southern Israel on Oct 7, killing 1,400 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 240 hostages. Since then, Israel has bombarded the coastal territory relentlessly, killing more than 10,000 people, many of them children.
Iran says it had no role in Hamas’ Oct 7 raid on Israel, though it has welcomed the attack.
