The Biden administration is preparing for an Iranian attack on Israel in the coming hours or days.
President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were briefed by the national security team on Monday afternoon about the “threats posed by Iran and its proxies to Israel and to U.S. servicemembers in the region,” the White House press office said in a statement.
It’s unclear how exactly Iran intends to attack Israel, but it has vowed to after last week’s assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, who was killed in Tehran while he was there to celebrate the Iranian president’s inauguration.
The administration has vowed to aid Israel in defending against an attack from Iran or its proxies, and the United States has troops in Jordan, Iraq, and Syria, which have come under attack in recent months by Iranian proxy militias in the latter two countries.
In preparation, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group to replace the USS Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group, additional ballistic missile defense-capable cruisers and destroyers to the Europe and Middle Eastern area, the deployment of an additional fighter squadron to the Middle East, and an increase in readiness to deploy additional land-based ballistic missile defense.
U.S. Central Command chief Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla is in Israel meeting with his counterparts there.
Biden spoke with King Abdullah II of Jordan to discuss efforts “to de-escalate regional tensions.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged every party in the Middle East not to escalate the current conflict further during public remarks with Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong.
“We are engaged in intense diplomacy pretty much around the clock, with a very simple message: All parties must refrain from escalation. All parties must take steps to ease tensions. Escalation is not in anyone’s interests. It will only lead to more conflict, more violence, more insecurity,” he said. “It is urgent that all parties make the right choices in the hours and days ahead.”
All of Iran’s proxies — Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and militias in Iraq and Syria — have carried out attacks against U.S. military personnel or Israel since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack.
Israel carried out a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria on April 1 that killed a senior Iranian commander and other senior Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps members. The Iranians waited a couple of days and then launched an unprecedented number of rockets, missiles, and drones at Israel from its own territory, a rarity, and had its proxies also launch their own projectiles at Israel.
The Israelis, with the help of several allies including the U.S., were able to intercept nearly all of the projectiles, significantly limiting the damage.
U.S. forces at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq were attacked on Monday, and there were reportedly casualties.
“The President and Vice President were briefed on the attack at Al Asad Air Base in Iraq,” the White House readout said. “They discussed the steps we are taking to defend our forces and respond to any attack against our personnel in a manner and place of our choosing.”
U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria have come under rocket or missile attack more than 170 times since the attacks began in the weeks following Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack in Israel that resulted in the deaths of roughly 1,200 people.
In late January, the militias killed three U.S. troops at Tower 22, a small U.S. base in northeast Jordan, which prompted a strong U.S. military response, and the attacks largely stopped after that.
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Israel also assassinated a senior Hezbollah commander, whom the Israelis said was responsible for a prior rocket attack that killed a dozen teenagers on a soccer field in the Golan Heights days before the Haniyeh assassination. Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in cross-border attacks — mainly missiles, rocket, or drone attacks — since the immediate aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.
The cross-border attacks have forced tens of thousands of civilians to evacuate their homes on both sides of the border. Experts warn that if Israel and Hezbollah were to have an all-out war, it would be extremely destructive and deadly for both sides even though they believe Israel would likely end the conflict ahead.