The United States believes an umbrella group of militants called Islamic Resistance in Iraq was behind the drone attack in Jordan that killed three American service members, the White House said Wednesday, its first formal attribution for the incident.
"We believe that the attack in Jordan was planned, resourced and facilitated by an umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, which contains multiple groups including Kata'ib Hezbollah," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said.
He stopped short of assigning exact blame on Kata'ib Hezbollah, saying it was not the only group responsible for previous attacks on US bases.
"This certainly has the earmarks of the kinds of things that Kata'ib Hezbollah does," he said, adding, "The attribution that our intelligence community is comfortable with is that this was done by the umbrella group called the Islamic Resistance in Iraq."
Kirby said as the US was preparing to respond to the attack, there would likely be multiple phases of a counterattack.