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Navy SEAL Is Killed in Northern Iraq in Fight With ISIS | |
(about 3 hours later) | |
WASHINGTON — A Navy SEAL was killed in northern Iraq on Tuesday morning, according to a United States official — the third American service member to die in combat since a United States-led coalition began fighting the Islamic State in Iraq in 2014. It was also the third such death in combat since the American troop withdrawal from Iraq in 2011. | |
The SEAL was killed around 9:30 a.m., when enemy forces north of Mosul penetrated the front lines of the Kurdish pesh merga militias, which are fighting alongside the coalition against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. The SEAL, who was conducting “advise and assist” duties in support of the pesh merga, was not identified. He was two to three miles behind the front lines when he was killed. | |
Defense Secretary Ashton B. Carter confirmed the death of a service member during a meeting in Stuttgart, Germany, and a Pentagon spokesman, Peter Cook, said in a statement: “This sad news is a reminder of the dangers our men and women in uniform face every day in the ongoing fight to destroy ISIL and end the threat the group poses to the United States and the rest of the world. Our coalition will honor this sacrifice by dealing ISIL a lasting defeat.” | |
Mr. Cook and the top United States military spokesman in the region, Col. Steven H. Warren, said more details would be released when they were available. | |
In October, Master Sgt. Joshua L. Wheeler, 39, of Sequoyah County, Okla., became the first American in four years to die in combat in Iraq. Sergeant Wheeler was killed while responding to a helicopter raid by Kurdish commandos aimed at rescuing about 70 hostages who were about to be killed by Islamic State militants. | |
The second was Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, 27, of Temecula, Calif., who was killed in March when rockets were launched at a secret fire base of about 100 Marines in northern Iraq. He was leading Marines under his command to a bunker for safety when a rocket exploded near him. | The second was Staff Sgt. Louis F. Cardin, 27, of Temecula, Calif., who was killed in March when rockets were launched at a secret fire base of about 100 Marines in northern Iraq. He was leading Marines under his command to a bunker for safety when a rocket exploded near him. |