U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan

Washington, February 4 (RHC)-- U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan has threatened that Washington plans to launch further strikes across the West Asia region in reprisal for the death of three American occupation forces in a recent drone attack in Jordan.

"We intend to take additional strikes, and additional action, to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked, when our people are killed," Sullivan said in an interview with NBC on Sunday.  “The [U.S] president [Joe Biden] has been very clear from the beginning, which is that when American forces are attacked, we will respond, and we’ve responded several times over the course of the past few months,” he said.

In a separate interview with CBS, Sullivan also said, "What happened on Friday was the beginning, not the end, of our response, and there will be more steps – some seen, some perhaps unseen. I would not describe it as some open-ended military campaign."

On Friday, the United States carried out airstrikes on more than 85 targets in Iraq and Syria.  The barrage of airstrikes was launched in response to an attack on a base in Jordan on January 28, in which three US occupation troops were killed and about 40 others injured.

The Islamic Resistance in Iraq released a statement claiming responsibility for the drone attack on Al-Tanf base at the Syria-Jordan border.   In December, U.S. officials said military bases housing American troops in Iraq and Syria had been attacked at least 97 times since October 17.

Late on Saturday, the United States and Britain also carried out dozens of air raids on several Yemeni provinces, including Sana’a and Hudaydah, with the Pentagon claiming that the strikes targeted 13 locations across the Arab country.

Yemeni Army spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree said the aggressors conducted 48 airstrikes. He warned that their assault will not go unanswered.  In solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza, Yemeni forces have targeted ships going to and coming from ports in the occupied territories, or those vessels whose owners are linked to Israel, in the southern Red Sea, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait, the Gulf of Aden, and even in the Arabian Sea.

In response to the pro-Palestine naval campaign, the US and its allies have on several occasions bombed Yemen in violation of international law.

The Israeli regime launched its hostilities in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, after the territory’s Hamas-led Palestinian resistance groups launched surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupiers.

Israel has killed more than 27,300 people, most of them children and women, in Gaza since early October.