Islamic State militants killed a U.S. serviceman in northern Iraq on Tuesday after blasting through Kurdish defences and overrunning a town in the biggest offensive in the area for months, officials said.
The dead man was the third American to be killed in direct combat since a U.S.-led coalition launched a campaign in 2014 to “degrade and destroy” the jihadist group, and is a measure of its deepening involvement in the conflict.
“It is a combat death, of course, and a very sad loss,” U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter told reporters during a trip to Germany.
A U.S. defence official said the dead man was a Navy SEAL. The SEALs are considered to be among the most able U.S. special operations forces and capable of taking on dangerous missions.
A senior official within the Kurdish peshmerga forces facing Islamic State in northern Iraq said the man had been killed near the town of Tel Asqof, around 28 kilometres (17 miles) from the militant stronghold of Mosul.
The Islamic State insurgents occupied the town at dawn on Tuesday but were driven out later in the day by the peshmerga. A U.S. military official said the coalition had helped the peshmerga with air support from F-15 jets and drones.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the man was killed “by direct fire” from Islamic State.
Carter’s spokesman, Peter Cook, said the incident took place during an Islamic State attack on a peshmerga position some 3-5 km behind the forward line.
Such Islamic State incursions are rare in northern Iraq, where the Kurdish peshmerga have pushed the militants back with the help of coalition air strikes and set up defensive lines that the militants are rarely able to breach.
The leader of a Christian militia deployed alongside peshmerga in Tel Asqof said the insurgents had used multiple suicide bombers, some driving vehicles laden with explosives, to penetrate peshmerga lines.