The Da’esh (ISIS) terrorist group killed a U.S. soldier in Iraq this week, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Defense announced Tuesday.
The soldier was “aiding Kurdish fighters near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul,” according to the statement by the DoD spokesperson.
He was “hit by direct enemy fire about 20 miles from Mosul,” which the spokesperson labeled as the Da’esh “de facto capital in Iraq.”
CBS News quoted U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter as saying in a brief statement “It is a combat death, of course. And a very sad loss,” but giving no detail.
The U.S.-led “Operation Inherent Resolve” also issued a short written statement that said a coalition “service member was killed in northern Iraq as a result of enemy fire.”
The “enemy” was not specifically named by the government, however.
According to CBS News senior national security correspondent David Martin, the soldier was an American adviser to the Kurdish Peshmerga force, working with a unit a couple of miles behind the front line “during a battle with ISIS.”
Some of the terrorists managed to penetrate through the line into Kurdish territory and killed the soldier with a gunshot, he reported, despite air support from U.S. F-15 fighter jets and drones during the battle.
“It was a real battle, not just one-off raid,” Martin reported.
A U.S. Marine was killed by Da’esh rocket fire and several others were wounded in northern Iraq in mid-March.