US Central Command has identified the three US Army soldiers killed in a drone attack on a US outpost in Jordan and members of an Army Reserve Engineer Company. The dead are SGT William Jerome Rivers, 46, of Carrollton, GA; SPC Kennedy Ladon Sanders, 24, of Waycross, GA; and SPC Breonna Alexsondria Moffett, 23, of Savannah, GA.

All three were members of the Army Reserve’s 718th Engineer Company. https://t.co/5Ecfa38hnt

— ArmyTimes (@ArmyTimes) January 29, 2024

The attack took place at the "Tower 22" outpost inside a larger US base area.

BREAKING:

US announces that 3 American soldiers were killed by a suicide drone striking the Tower 22 military outpost in Jordan last night.

Another 25 Americans wounded.

Tower 22 (Area 55) is located right next to the border with Syria and Iraq.

Major crisis happening pic.twitter.com/z0lladWID5

— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) January 28, 2024

About 350 Army and Air Force personnel are at this location, providing logistics support for anti-ISIS operations. My original report said 25 were wounded. That number has since been raised to 34, with eight requiring medevac out of theater.

READ: BREAKING: Three American Soldiers Killed and 25 Injured in Drone Attack on Base in Jordan

The 718th's home base is Harmony Church on Fort Benning, Georgia, or whatever they are calling it this week.

According to authorized leaks by the US military, a drone operated by Iranian proxy forces was mistaken for a US-operated drone. That suicide drone detonated in the sleeping compartment area of the compound, killing the three soldiers. As my colleague Ward Clark notes, there are a ton of unanswered questions about how the official narrative came to be.

READ: Suicide Drone That Killed Three American Soldiers Slipped Past Air Defenses, Mistaken for US Drone

I'm by no means a "bring all the troops home" type of guy. I think forward deployed forces enhance our national security. I was never quite clear on why we particularly cared about ISIS, as that was Iran's problem. I'm much less clear on why they are our problem now. I think this tragedy should open a discussion, one we needed to have about a decade ago, on what in the hell we are doing in Syria and Iraq and why we should be doing it. Because this tragedy is going to happen again.