An American serviceman was killed near Irbil
in northern Iraq during an attack by Islamic State group fighters, U.S.
Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday. He was killed while aiding
Kurdish fighters in the region.
Carter didn’t provide further details, other
than telling reporters that it was “a combat death” and that the soldier
died “in the neighborhood of Irbil,” the Associated Press (AP) reported.
“A Coalition service member was killed in
northern Iraq as a result of enemy fire,” the U.S. Central Command
(CENTCOM) said in a statement, without disclosing the serviceman’s name
and rank complying with military protocol. “Further information will be
released as appropriate.”
The AP report also cited a U.S. military
official saying that the serviceman was killed while he was on a
train-and-assist mission, advising Kurdish Peshmerga troops, who are
U.S. allies in the fight against the Islamic State group, also known as
ISIS. The military official said that the serviceman was hit by “direct
fire” after ISIS militants infiltrated Peshmerga’s forward line.
Tuesday’s attacks in the nearby city of Mosul
were said to be the largest against Kurdish forces in recent months by
ISIS militants, who have been losing ground in the north and west of
Iraq, Reuters reported.
“The enemy penetrated the Kurdish lines,” the Wall Street Journal quoted
Col. Steve Warren, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the
U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS, as saying. “They went about five
kilometers past the forward line of troops with some truck bombs.”
The serviceman is the third American soldier
killed in Iraq since U.S. troops pulled out from the Middle Eastern
country in 2011 after a nearly decade-long occupation, the journal
reported.
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