[AnNahar] The Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
group broke through Kurdish defenses in northern Iraq on Tuesday and killed an American service member deployed as part of the U.S.-led coalition against the jihadists.
The service member, whom the Pentagon confirmed was American, was at least the third killed by enemy fire in Iraq since IS overran swathes of the country in 2014.
"On May 3, 2016, a coalition service member was killed in northern Iraq as a result of enemy fire," the coalition said in a statement.
Pentagon front man Peter Cook said the death occurred during an IS attack on a peshmerga position north of Iraq's jihadist-held second city djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
U.S. Defense 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 (0630 GMT) by "direct fire" after "enemy forces penetrated" the Kurdish peshmerga forces' line.
Kurdish forces are deployed in Nineveh province, whose capital Mosul is IS's main hub in the country.
IS 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.
The United States announced last month that it was deploying additional forces to Iraq, bringing the official total to more than 4,000.
Pentagon front man Jeff Davis said the forces would be authorized to advise Iraqis at the battalion and brigade level as opposed to larger divisions, potentially exposing them to greater risks closer to the front lines.
The coalition military official said the service member killed on Tuesday was involved in advising and assisting forces, and was three to five kilometers (two to three miles) behind the front line.
The size of the unit he was advising was not immediately clear.
The coalition is carrying out daily air strikes against IS, and while most American forces on the ground in Iraq play advisory and support roles, Washington has also deployed special forces to carry out raids against IS and U.S. Marines to provide artillery support.
Two U.S. military personnel have already been killed by the jihadists in Iraq: an American Marine by rocket fire in March and a special forces soldier who died of wounds received during a raid last October.