(Adds additional quote from PM in paragraph 9, background)
WASHINGTON, Jan 29 (Reuters) - Qatar's prime minister said on Monday he hoped U.S. retaliation for an attack that killed three U.S. soldiers in Jordan would not undermine progress toward a new hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas in weekend talks.
"I hope nothing undermines the efforts we are making or jeopardizes the process," Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al Thani told a think tank audience in Washington when asked if retaliation of the United States over a drone attack by Iranian-backed militants could derail an emerging deal.
CIA Director William Burns met on Sunday with Sheikh Mohammed, as well as the head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service and the head of Egyptian intelligence, in talks described as constructive by Israel, Qatar and the United States. , although there are still important gaps.
US President Joe Biden has been trying to facilitate the release of the more than 100 hostages who remain captive after the deadly October 7 attack in southern Israel by militants from Hamas, which rules Gaza.
According to Israel, some 1,200 people were killed and 253 kidnapped in the attack, which sparked Israel's war to eliminate Hamas. Since then, Israel has unleashed a torrent of attacks on Gaza that have leveled most of the Palestinian enclave and killed more than 26,000 people, Palestinian health officials say.
Tensions have risen across the Middle East since Israel began its air and ground offensive, with Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi forces attacking US and other targets in the Red Sea in attacks that have disrupted global shipping.
In a major escalation, three U.S. service members were killed and at least 34 wounded in a drone attack by Iranian-backed militants against U.S. troops in northeast Jordan near the Syrian border, U.S. officials said Sunday.
Speaking at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington, the Qatari prime minister said US retaliation "will definitely have an impact... One way or another it will definitely have an impact on regional security and we hope things will be contained." ". (Reporting by Jonathan Landay, Arshad Mohammed and Andrew Mills; Editing by Ros Russell)
