Small Wars Journal

Two U.S. Special Operations Marines Killed Fighting ISIS in Iraq

Mon, 03/09/2020 - 11:53am

Two U.S. Special Operations Marines Killed Fighting ISIS in Iraq by Thomas Gibbons-Neff - New York Times

Two U.S. Special Operations personnel were killed in northern Iraq on Sunday during an operation against Islamic State fighters there, military officials said Monday, marking the first combat deaths of 2020 in the nearly six-year long American campaign against the terrorist group.

The Americans killed were part of a Marine Special Operations team, according to two military officials, and were clearing a large, well-defended cave complex alongside Iraqi counterterrorism forces in mountains near Makhmur, roughly 40 miles south of Erbil.

In a statement, Col. Myles B. Caggins III, a spokesman for the American-led mission in Iraq and Syria, said that U.S. troops had to deploy additional forces to recover the dead in an effort that took roughly six hours…

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