Biden pays silent tribute to three American soldiers killed in the Middle East
President Biden honored three Army reservists killed in the Middle East as their bodies were returned to the United States Friday in a quiet, somber ceremony, marking the first deaths under fire in a proxy war with Iran-backed militias since
Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel.
Mr. Biden attended a brief event known as a “dignified handover” at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, along with his wife, Jill Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Personnel. No speeches were made, but the president and others stood solemnly as the flag-draped caskets were carried across the tarmac.
The ceremony came as Mr. Biden prepared for what officials described as a multi-layered retaliation playing out over more than one day against targets in more than one country linked to Iran or its affiliated armed groups in Iraq or Syria. The coming US strikes are intended not only to punish those deemed responsible for the attack that killed the three reservists, but to deter future attacks without going so far as to provoke an escalation into an even broader war .
Mr. Austin made clear at a briefing on Thursday that the retaliatory strike would go further than any action taken so far in the nearly four-month conflict in the Middle East. “At this point it's time to take away even more capacity than we have in the past,” he said.
But while U.S. officials have said Iran is responsible for the actions of the militias it supplies and funds, it seemed unlikely that Biden would actually strike targets inside Iran itself, as Republican critics in Congress have demanded. It appeared he would instead focus on armed groups in Iraq and Syria.
The three reservists were killed by an explosives-laden drone at a remote base in Jordan, just across the border from Iraq, where Iranian-supplied fighters operate. Although the drone strike was only the latest of more than 160 attacks on U.S. and allied targets since Oct. 7, it was the first to result in American deaths. Two Navy SEALs died after going overboard during an interdiction operation in the Arabian Sea and a U.S. civilian contractor died of a heart attack during a false alarm for a strike.
Those killed in Jordan were identified as Sgt. William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, Ga.; Specialist Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, Georgia; and Specialist Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, Georgia.
The three were assigned to the 926th Engineer Battalion, 926th Engineer Brigade, based at Fort Moore, Georgia, a unit that builds roads, landing fields and other facilities for U.S. forces abroad. Specialists Sanders and Moffett were posthumously promoted to sergeant after their deaths. About 40 others were injured in Sunday's attack.