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  ISIS kills US soldier in Iraq attack

ISIS kills US soldier in Iraq attack

AFP
Published : May 4, 2016, 6:42 am IST
Updated : May 4, 2016, 6:42 am IST

The Islamic State group broke through Kurdish defences in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed an American service member deployed as part of the US-led coalition against the jihadists.

Rockets, reportedly fired by rebels, hit Al-Dabbeet hospital in government-controlled neighbourhood of Muhafaza in Aleppo. — AFP
 Rockets, reportedly fired by rebels, hit Al-Dabbeet hospital in government-controlled neighbourhood of Muhafaza in Aleppo. — AFP

The Islamic State group broke through Kurdish defences in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed an American service member deployed as part of the US-led coalition against the jihadists.

The jihadist attack in the north came as a sea of Shia pilgrims braved the threat of bombings by ISIS, which have killed dozens in recent days, to take part in a major annual religious commemoration in Baghdad.

The service member, whom the Pentagon confirmed was American, was at least the third killed by enemy fire in Iraq since ISIS overran swathes of the country in 2014.

President Barack Obama hailed the 2011 withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as a major accomplishment of his presidency, but US forces have been drawn back into combat in the country against ISIS.

“On May 3, 2016, a coalition service member was killed in northern Iraq as a result of enemy fire,” the coalition said.

Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the death occurred during an ISIS attack on a peshmerga position north of Iraq’s jihadist-held second city Mosul.

US defence secretary Ashton Carter said from Germany, “Our thoughts and prayers are with that service member’s family.”

A coalition military official said on condition of anonymity that the service member was killed at 9:30 am by “direct fire” after “enemy forces penetrated” the Kurdish peshmerga forces’ line. Kurdish forces are deployed in Nineveh, whose capital Mosul is ISIS’s main hub in the country.

ISIS attacked the peshmerga in multiple areas of northern Iraq on Tuesday in an attempt to “thwart the plan to liberate Mosul,” said Jabbar Yawar, the secretary general of the autonomous Kurdish region’s peshmerga ministry.

Location: Iraq, Baghdad