US service member killed in northern Iraq, Defense Secretary says
(FOX News) - A U.S. service member has been killed in northern Iraq, defense secretary Ash Carter said Tuesday.
Carter gave no details about the service member who was killed, but said the death occurred "in the neighborhood" of the city of Irbil, in Iraqi Kurdistan.
"It is a combat death, of course. And a very sad loss," Carter told reporters in Stuttgart, Germany, where he was attending a ceremony installing a new commander of U.S. European Command.
A statement by the U.S.-led coalition confirmed that the service member was killed by enemy fire. A defense official told Fox News the American was an adviser to Kurdish Peshmerga troops. He was killed by "direct fire" after ISIS forces penetrated the Peshmerga's forward line. The American was three to two to three miles behind that front line, the official said.
Three U.S. military personnel have been killed in Iraq as part of the ground fight against the ISIS terror group. The last American death happened in March, when a U.S. Marine was killed in a rocket attack on a firebase in northern Iraq.