Tower 22, the U.S. base in Jordan where three U.S. troops were killed by a one-way attack drone late last month, suffered from inadequate anti-drone defenses, said military sources who have served on the base.
Despite the repeated attacks and a well-funded Pentagon’s investment in counter-drone technology, the U.S. military failed to stop the Tower 22 drone attack.
“The air defenses were minimal, if any,” an Air Force airman, who served at Tower 22 last year, told The Intercept. “We relied heavily on aircraft from MSAB” — Muwaffaq Salti Air Base, a nearby Jordanian base that houses a U.S. military presence — “to stop any targets. We had a radar system called TPS-75 that was broken 80 percent of the time I was there.”
A preliminary military investigation reported in the Washington PostOpens in a new tab on Tuesday concluded that the drone was never detected, likely by flying too low for the bases antiquated radar system. Just a week before the attack, the military announced an $84 million contractOpens in a new tab to work on a replacement to the TPS-75, a mobile, ground-based radar array from the 1960s.
With inadequate defenses in place, the Tower 22 drone attack led to the deaths of the three U.S. service members and injuries to at least 40 others, casualties that spurred deepening U.S. military involvement in a tense Middle East.
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